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ESSAYS    IN     LITTLE 


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^ 


ESSAYS    IN    LITTLE 


BY 

ANDREW    LANG 


WITH  PORTRAIT  OF  THE  AUTHOR 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1891 


Press  of  J.  J.  Little  &  Co. 
Astor  Place,  New  York 


PREFACE. 


CoUegtf 
Lxbrary 

p/v 


/'~\F  the  following  essays,  five  are  new,  and  were 
^-^  written  for  this  volume.  They  are  the  paper 
on  Mr.  R.  L.  Stevenson,  the  "  Letter  to  a  Young 
Journalist,"  the  study  of  Mr.  Kipling,  the  note  on 
Homer,  and  "The  Last  Fashionable  Novel."  The 
article  on  the  author  of  "  Oh,  no !  we  never  mention 
Her,"  appeared  in  the  New  York  Sun^  and  was 
suggested  by  Mr.  Dana,  the  editor  of  that  journal. 
The  papers  on  Thackeray  and  Dickens  were  pub- 
lished in  Good  Words,  that  on  Dumas  appeared  in 
Scribner's  Magazine,  that  on  M.  Theodore  de  Banville 
in  TJie  New  Quarterly  Review.  The  other  essays 
were  originally  written  for  a  newspaper  "  Syndicate." 
They  have  been  re-cast,  augmented,  and,  to  a  great 
extent,  re- written. 

A.  L. 


1115875 


CONTENTS. 


PAGB 

ALEXANDRE  DUMAS I 

MR.   STEVENSON'S  WORKS 24 

THOMAS  HAYNES  BAYLY 36 

THEODORE  DE  BANVILLE 5 1 

HOMER  AND  THE  STUDY  OF  GREEK  .  .  .  .     'J'] 

THE  LAST  FASHIONABLE  NOVEL 93 

THACKERAY I03 

DICKENS 118 

ADVENTURES  OF  BUCCANEERS  132 

THE  SAGAS    .  .  I4I 

CHARLES  KINGSLEY 153 

CHARLES  LEVER  :     HIS  BOOKS,  ADVENTURES  AND  MIS- 
FORTUNES        160 

THE  POEMS  OF  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT 171 

JOHN   BUNVAN 182 

LETTER  TO  A  YOUNG  JOURNALIST I9I 

MR.  KIPLING'S  STORIES Iq8 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS. 

ALEXANDRE  DUMAS  is  a  writer,  and  his  life  is  a 
topic,  of  which  his  devotees  never  weary.  Indeed, 
one  lifetime  is  not  long  enough  wherein  to  tire  of  them. 
The  long  days  and  years  of  Hilpa  and  Shalum,  in  Addison 
— the  antediluvian  age,  when  a  picnic  lasted  for  half  a 
century  and  a  courtship  for  two  hundred  years,  might  have 
sufficed  for  an  exhaustive  study  of  Dumas.  No  such  study 
have  I  to  offer,  in  the  brief  seasons  of  our  perishable  days. 
I  own  that  I  have  not  read,  and  do  not,  in  the  circumstances, 
expect  to  read,  all  of  Dumas,  nor  even  the  greater  part  of 
his  thousand  volumes.  We  only  dip  a  cup  in  that  sparkling 
spring,  and  drink,  and  go  on, — we  cannot  hope  to  exhaust 
the  fountain,  nor  to  carry  away  with  us  the  well  itself  It  is 
but  a  word  of  gratitude  and  delight  that  we  can  say  to  the 
heroic  and  indomitable  master,  only  an  ave  of  friendship 
that  we  can  call  across  the  bourne  to  the  shade  of  the 
Porlhos  of  fiction.  That  his  works  (his  best  works)  should 
be  even  still  more  widely  circulated  than  they  are ;  that  the 
young  should  read  them,  and  learn  frankness,  kindness, 
generosity — should  esteem  the  tender  heart,  and  the  gay, 
invincible  wit ;  that  the  old  should  read  them  again,  and 
find  forgetfulness  of  trouble,  and  taste  the  anodyne  of 
dreams,  that  is  what  we  desire. 

Dumas  said  of  himself  ("  Me'moires,"  v.  13)  that  when 
w.  L.-/.  J 


2  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

he  was   young  he  tried  several   times   to   read  forbidden 

books — books  that  are  sold  sous  le  manteau.     But  he  never 

got  farther  than  the  tenth  page,  in  the 

'■  scrofulous  French  novel 
On  gray  paper  with  blunt  type  j" 

he  never  made  his  way  so  far  as 

"  the  woful  sixteenth  print." 

"  I  had,  thank  God,  a  natural  sentiment  of  delicacy ;  and 
thus,  out  of  my  six  hundred  volumes  (in  1852)  there  are  not 
four  which  the  most  scrupulous  mother  may  not  give  to  her 
daughter."  Much  later,  in  1864,  when  the  Censure  threat- 
ened one  of  his  plays,  he  wrote  to  the  Emperor :  "  Of  my 
twelve  hundred  volumes  there  is  not  one  which  a  girl  in  our 
most  modest  quarter,  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  may  not 
be  allowed  to  read."  The  mothers  of  the  Faubourg,  and 
mothers  in  general,  may  not  take  Dumas  exactly  at  his 
word.  There  is  a  passage,  for  example,  in  the  story  of 
Miladi  ("  Les  Trois  Mousquetaires ")  which  a  parent  or 
guardian  may  well  think  undesirable  reading  for  youth. 
But  compare  it  with  the  original  passage  in  the  "  Memoires  " 
of  D'Artagnan  !  It  has  passed  through  a  medium,  as  Dumas 
himself  declared,  of  natural  delicacy  and  good  taste.  His 
enormous  popularity,  the  widest  in  the  world  of  letters, 
owes  absolutely  nothing  to  prurience  or  curiosity.  The  air 
which  he  breathes  is  a  healthy  air,  is  the  open  air  ;  and  that 
by  his  own  choice,  for  he  had  every  temptation  to  seek 
another  kind  of  vogue,  and  every  opportunity. 

Two  anecdotes  are  told  of  Dumas'  books,  one  by  M. 
Edmond  About,  the  other  by  his  own  son,  which  show,  in 
brief  space,  why  this  novelist  is  so  beloved,  and  why  he 
deserves  our  affection  and  esteem.     M.  Villaud,  a  railway 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS.  3 

engineer  who  had  lived  much  in  Italy,  Russia,  and  Spain, 
was  the  person  whose  enthusiasm  finally  secured  a  statue 
.  for  Dumas.  He  felt  so  much  gratitude  to  the  unknown 
friend  of  lonely  nights  in  long  exiles,  that  he  could  not  be 
happy  till  his  gratitude  found  a  permanent  expression.  On 
returning  to  France  he  went  to  consult  M.  Victor  Borie,  who 
told  him  this  tale  about  George  Sand.  M.  Borie  chanced 
to  visit  the  famous  novelist  just  before  her  death,  and  found 
Dumas'  novel,  "  Les  Quarante  Cinq "  (one  of  the  cycle 
about  the  Valois  kings)  lying  on  her  table.  He  expressed 
his  wonder  that  she  was  reading  it  for  the  first  time. 

"  For  the  first  time ! — why,  this  is  the  fifth  or  sixth  time  I 
have  read  *  Les  Quarante  Cinq,*  and  the  others.  When  I  am 
ill,  anxious,  melancholy,  tired,  discouraged,  nothing  helps  me 
against  moral  or  physical  troubles  like  a  book  of  Dumas." 
Again,  M.  About  says  that  M.  Sarcey  was  in  the  same  class 
at  school  with  a  little  Spanish  boy.  The  child  was  homesick ; 
he  could  not  eat,  he  could  not  sleep ;  he  was  almost  in  a 
decline. 

"  You  want  to  see  your  mother?"  said  young  Sarcey. 

"  No  :  she  is  dead." 

"  Your  father,  then  ?  " 

**  No :  he  used  to  beat  me." 

"  Your  brothers  and  sisters  ?" 

"  I  have  none." 

"  Then  why  are  you  so  eager  to  be  back  in  Spain  ?  " 

"  To  finish  a  book  I  began  in  the  holidays." 

**  And  what  was  its  name  ?" 

"  '  Los  Tres  Mosqueteros '  1 " 

He  was  homesick  for  "  The  Three  Musketeers,"  and  they 
cured  him  easily. 


4  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

That  is  what  Dumas  does.  He  gives  courage  and  life  to 
old  age,  he  charms  away  the  half-conscious  nostalgic,  the 
Heimweh,  of  childhood.  We  are  all  homesick,  in  the 
dark  days  and  black  towns,  for  the  land  of  blue  skies  and 
brave  adventures  in  forests,  and  in  lonely  inns,  on  the 
battle-field,  in  the  prison,  on  the  desert  isle.  And  then 
Dumas  comes,  and,  like  Argive  Helen,  in  Homer,  he  casts 
a  drug  into  the  wine,  the  drug  nepenthe,  "  that  puts  all  evil 
cut  of  mind."  Does  any  one  suppose  that  when  George 
Sand  was  old  and  tired,  and  near  her  death,  she  would 
have  found  this  anodyne,  and  this  stimulant,  in  the  novels 
of  M.  Tolstoi',  M.  Dostoiefsky,  M.  Zola,  or  any  of  the 
"  scientific "  observers  whom  we  are  actually  requested 
to  hail  as  the  masters  of  a  new  art,  the  art  of  the  future  ? 
Would  they  make  her  laugh,  as  Chicot  does  ?  make  her 
forget,  as  Porthos,  Athos,  and  Aramis  do?  take  her  away 
from  the  heavy,  familiar  time,  as  the  enchanter  Dumas 
takes  us  No  ;  let  it  be  enough  for  these  new  authors  to 
be  industrious,  keen,  accurate,  precieux,  pitiful,  charitable, 
veracious;  but  give  us  high  spirits  now  and  then,  a  light 
heart,  a  sharp  sword,  a  fair  wench,  a  good  horse,  or  even 
that  old  Gascon  rouncy  of  D'Artagnan's.  Like  the  good 
Lord  James  Douglas,  we  had  liefer  hear  the  lark  sing  over 
moor  and  down,  with  Chicot,  than  listen  to  the  starved- 
mouse  squeak  in  the  douge  of  Therbse  Raquin,  with  M.  Zola. 
Not  that  there  is  not  a  place  and  an  hour  for  him,  and  others 
like  him  ;  but  they  are  not,  if  you  please,  to  have  the  whole 
world  to  themselves,  and  all  the  time,  and  all  the  praise ; 
they  are  not  to  turn  the  world  into  a  dissecting-room,  time 
into  tedium,  and  the  laurels  of  Scott  and  Dimias  into 
crowns  of  nettles. 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS.  % 

There  is  no  complete  life  of  Alexandre  Dumas.  The  age 
has  not  produced  the  intellectual  athlete  who  can  gird  him- 
self up  for  that  labour.  One  of  the  worst  books  that  ever 
was  written,  if  it  can  be  said  to  be  written,  is,  I  think,  the 
English  attempt  at  a  biography  of  Dumas.  Style,  grammar, 
taste,  feeling,  are  all  bad.  The  author  does  not  so  much 
write  a  life  as  draw  up  an  indictment.  The  spirit  of  his 
work  is  grudging,  sneering,  contemptuous,  and  pitifully 
peddling.  The  great  charge  is  that  Dumas  was  a  humbug, 
that  he  was  not  the  author  of  his  own  books,  that  his  books 
were  written  by  "  collaborators  " — above  all,  by  M.  Maquet. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  Dumas  had  a  regular  system  of 
collaboration,  which  he  never  concealed.  But  whereas 
Dumas  could  turn  out  books  that  live^  whoever  his  assist- 
ants were,  could  any  of  his  assistants  write  books  that  live, 
without  Dumas  ?  One  might  as  well  call  any  barrister 
in  good  practice  a  thief  and  an  impostor  because  he 
has  juniors  to  "  devil "  for  him,  as  make  charges  of  this 
kind  against  Dumas.  He  once  asked  his  son  to  help 
him ;  the  younger  Alexandre  declined.  "  It  is  worth  a 
thousand  a  year,  and  you  have  only  to  make  objections," 
the  sire  urged ;  but  the  son  was  not  to  be  tempted.  Some 
excellent  novelists  of  to-day  would  be  much  better  if  they 
employed  a  friend  to  make  objections.  But,  as  a  rule,  the 
colloborator  did  much  more.  Dumas'  method,  apparently, 
was  first  to  talk  the  subject  over  with  his  aide-de-camp.  This 
is  an  excellent  practice,  as  ideas  are  knocked  out,  like  sparks 
(an  elderly  illustration !),  by  the  contact  of  minds.  Then 
the  young  man  probably  made  researches,  put  a  rough 
sketch  on  paper,  and  supplied  Dumas,  as  it  were,  with  his 
"brief."      Then  Dumas  took  the  "brief"  and  wrote  the 


6  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

novel.     He  gave  it  life,  he  gave  it  the  spark  {Tetincelle) 
and  the  story  lived  and  moved. 

It  is  true  that  he  "  took  his  own  where  he  found  it,"  like 
Mo  Ifere,  and  that  he  took  a  good  deal.  In  the  gallery  of 
an  old  country-house,  on  a  wet  day,  I  came  once  on  the 
"  M^moires  "  of  D'Artagnan,  ^here  they  had  lain  since  the 
family  bought  them  in  Queen  Anne's  time.  There  were  our 
old  friends  the  Musketeers,  and  there  were  many  of  their 
adventures,  told  at  great  length  and  breadth.  But  how 
much  more  vivacious  they  are  in  Dumas  !  M.  About  repeats 
a  story  of  Dumas  and  his  ways  of  work.  He  met  the  great 
man  at  Marseilles,  where,  indeed,  Alexandre  chanced  to  be 
"  on  with  the  new  love  "  before  being  completely  "  off  with 
the  old."  Dumas  picked  up  M.  About,  literally  lifted  him 
in  his  embrace,  and  carried  him  off  to  see  a  play  which  he 
had  written  in  three  days.  The  play  was  a  success ;  the 
supper  was  prolonged  till  three  in  the  morning ;  M.  About 
was  almost  asleep  as  he  walked  home,  but  Dumas  was  as 
fresh  as  if  he  had  just  got  out  of  bed.  "  Go  to  sleep, 
old  man,"  he  said  :  "  I,  who  am  only  fifty-five,  have  three 
feuilldons  to  write,  which  must  be  posted  to-morrow.  If  I 
have  time  I  shall  knock  up  a  little  piece  for  Montigny — the 
idea  is  running  in  my  head."  So  next  morning  M.  About 
saw  the  i\\xtefeuilkions  made  up  for  the  post,  and  another 
packet  addressed  to  M.  Montigny  :  it  was  the  play  L Invita- 
tion d,  la  Valse,  a  chef-d'oeuvre  !  Well,  the  material  had  been 
prepared  for  Dumas.  M.  About  saw  one  of  his  novels  at 
Marseilles  in  the  chrysalis.  It  was  a  stout  copy-book  full  of 
paper,  composed  by  a  practised  hand,  on  the  master's  design. 
Dumas  copied  out  each  little  leaf  on  a  big  leaf  of  paper, 
en  y  semant  I  esprit  d,  pleines  mains.     This  was  his  method. 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS,  7 

As  a  rule,  in  collaboration,  one  man  does  the  work  while 
the  other  looks  on.  Is  it  likely  that  Dumas  looked  on? 
That  was  not  the  manner  of  Dumas.  "  Mirecourt  and 
others,"  M.  About  says,  "  have  wept  crocodile  tears  for  the 
collaborators,  the  victims  of  his  glory  and  his  talent.  But 
it  is  difficult  to  lament  over  the  survivors  (1884).  The 
master  neither  took  their  money — for  they  are  rich,  nor  their 
fame — for  they  are  celebrated,  nor  their  merit — for  they  had 
and  still  have  plenty.  And  they  never  bewailed  their  fate  : 
the  reverse!  The  proudest  congratulate  themselves  on 
having  been  at  so  good  a  school ;  and  M.  Auguste  Maquet, 
the  chief  of  them,  speaks  with  real  reverence  and  affection 
of  his  great  friend."  And  M.  About  writes  "  as  one  who 
had  taken  the  master  red-hanled,  and  in  the  act  of  col- 
laboration." Dumas  has  a  curious  note  on  collaboration  in 
his  "  Souvenirs  Dramatiques."  Of  the  two  men  at  work 
together,  "  one  is  always  the  dupe,  and  he  is  the  man  of 
talent." 

There  is  no  biography  of  Dumas,  but  the  small  change 
of  a  biography  exists  in  abundance.  There  are  the  many 
volumes  of  his  "  Mdmoires,"  there  are  all  the  tomes  he 
wrote  on  hi.'"  travels  and  adventures  in  Africa,  Spain,  Italy, 
Kussia ;  the  book  he  wrote  on  his  beasts ;  the  romance  of 
Ange  PUou,  partly  autobiographical ;  and  there  are  plenty 
of  little  studies  by  people  who  knew  him.  As  to  his 
"  M^moires,"  as  to  all  he  wrote  about  himself,  of  course 
his  imagination  entered  into  the  narrative.  Like  Scott, 
when  he  had  a  good  story  he  liked  to  dress  it  up  with  a 
cocked  hat  and  a  sword.  Did  he  perform  all  those  astonish- 
ing and  innumerable  feats  of  strength,  skill,  courage,  address, 
in  revolutions,  in  voyages,  in  love,  in  war,  in  cookery  ?  The 


8  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

narrative  need  not  be  taken  "  at  the  foot  of  the  letter  **  \ 
great  as  was  his  force  and  his  courage,  his  fancy  was  greater 
still.  There  is  no  room  for  a  biography  of  him  here.  His 
descent  was  noble  on  one  side,  with  or  without  the  bend 
sinister,  which  he  said  he  would  never  have  disclaimed,  had 
it  been  his,  but  which  he  did  not  happen  tc  inherit.  On 
the  other  side  he  may  have  descended  from  kings ;  but,  as 
in  the  case  of  "The  Fair  Cub.  ,,"  he  must  have  added, 
"African,  unfortunately."  Did  his  father  perform  these 
mythical  feats  of  strength  ?  did  he  lift  up  a  horse  between 
his  legs,  while  clutching  a  rafter  with  his  hands?  did  he 
throw  his  regiment  before  him  over  a  wall,  as  Guy  Heavi- 
stone  threw  the  mare  which  refused  the  leap  ("  M^moires," 
i.  122)?  No  doubt  Dumas  believed  what  he  heard  about 
this  ancestor — in  whom,  perhaps,  one  may  see  a  hint  of  the 
giant  Porthos.  In  the  Revolution  and  in  the  wars  his  father 
won  the  name  of  Monsieur  de  I'Humanit^.  because  he 
made  a  bonfire  of  a  guillotine ;  and  of  Horatius  Codes, 
because  he  held  a  pass  as  bravely  as  the  Roman  "  in  the 
brave  days  of  old." 

This  was  a  father  to  be  proud  of;  and  pluck,  tenderness, 
generosity,  strength,  remained  the  favourite  virtues  of 
Dumas.  These  he  preached  and  practised.  They  say 
he  was  generous  before  he  was  just;  it  is  to  be  feared 
this  was  true,  but  he  gave  even  more  freely  than  he 
received.  A  regiment  of  seedy  people  sponged  on  him 
always ;  he  could  not  listen  to  a  tale  of  misery  but  he 
gave  what  he  had,  and  sometimes  left  himself  short  of  a 
dinner.  He  could  not  even  turn  a  dog  out  of  doors.  At 
his  Abbotsford,  "  Monte  Cristo  '*  the  gates  were  open  to 
everj'body  but  bailiffs.     His  dog  asked  other  dogs  to  come 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS.  9 

and  stay :  twelve  came,  making  thirteen  in  all.  The  old 
butler  wanted  to  turn  them  adrift,  and  Dumas  consented, 
and  repented. 

"  Michel,"  he  said,  "  there  are  some  expenses  which  a 
man's  social  position  and  the  character  which  he  has  had 
the  ill-luck  to  receive  from  heaven  force  upon  him.  I 
don't  believe  these  dogs  ruin  me.  Let  them  bide !  But, 
in  the  interests  of  their  own  good  luck,  see  they  are  not 
thirteen,  an  unfortunate  number  ! " 

"  Monsieur,  I'll  drive  one  of  them  away." 

"  No,  no,  Michel ;  let  a  fourteenth  come.  These  dogs 
cost  me  some  three  pounds  a  month,"  said  Dumas.  "A 
dinner  to  five  or  six  friends  would  cost  thrice  as  much,  and, 
when  they  went  home,  they  would  say  my  wine  was  good, 
but  certainly  that  my  books  were  bad."  In  this  fashion 
Dumas  fared  royally  "to  the  dogs,"  and  his  Abbotsford 
ruined  him  as  certainly  as  that  other  unhappy  palace  ruined 
Sir  Walter.  He,  too,  had  his  miscellaneous  kennel ;  he, 
too,  gave  while  he  had  anything  to  give,  and,  when  he 
had  nothing  else,  gave  the  work  of  his  pen.  Dumas  tells 
how  his  big  dog  Mouton  once  flew  at  him  and  bit  one 
of  his  hands,  while  the  other  held  the  throat  of  the 
brute.  "  Luckily  my  hand,  though  small,  is  powerful ; 
what  it  once  holds  it  holds  long — money  excepted." 
He  could  not  "  haud  a  guid  grip  o'  the  gear."  Neither 
Scott  nor  Dumas  could  shut  his  ears  to  a  prayer  or  his 
pockets  to  a  beggar,  or  his  doors  on  whoever  knocked  at 
tiiem. 

"  I  might  at  least  have  asked  him  to  dinner,"  Scott  was 
heard  murmuring,  when  some  insufferable  bore  at  last 
left  Abbotsford,  after  wasting  his  time  and  nearly  wearing 


lo  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

out  his  patience.  Neither  man  preached  socialism  ;  both 
practised  it  on  the  Aristotelian  principle  :  the  goods  ol 
friends  are  common,  and  men  are  our  friends. 

The  death  of  Dumas'  father,  while  the  son  was  a  child, 
left  Madame  Dumas  in  great  poverty  at  Villers  Cotterets. 
Dumas'  education  was  sadly  to  seek.  Like  most  children 
destined  to  be  bookish,  he  taught  himself  to  read  very 
young  :  in  Buffon,  the  Bible,  and  books  of  mythology. 
He  knew  all  about  Jupiter — like  David  Copperfield's  Tom 
Jones,  "  a  child's  Jupiter,  an  innocent  creature  " — all  about 
every  god,  goddess,  fawn,  dryad,  nymph — and  he  never 
forgot  this  useful  information.  Dear  Lempri^re,  thou  art 
superseded ;  but  how  much  more  delightful  thou  art  than 
the  fastidious  Smith  or  the  learned  Preller  !  Dumas  had 
one  volume  of  the  *'  Arabian  Nights,"  with  Aladdin's  lamp 
therein,  the  sacred  lamp  which  he  was  to  keep  burning  with 
a  flame  so  brilliant  and  so  steady.  It  is  pleasant  to  know 
that,  in  his  boyhood,  this  great  romancer  loved  Virgil. 
*'  Little  as  is  my  Latin,  I  have  ever  adored  Virgil :  his 
tenderness  for  exiles,  his  melancholy  vision  of  death,  his 
foreboding  of  an  unknown  God,  have  always  moved  me ; 
the  melody  of  his  verses  charmed  me  most,  and  they  lull 
me  still  between  asleep  and  awake."  School  days  did  not 
last  long :  Madame  Dumas  got  a  little  post — a  licence  to 
sell  tobacco — and  at  fifteen  Dumas  entered  a  notary's  oflSce, 
like  his  great  Scotch  forerunner.  He  was  ignorant  of  his 
vocation  for  the  stage — Racine  and  Corneille  fatigued  him 
prodigiously — till  he  saw  Hamlet:  Hamlet  diluted  by 
Ducis.  He  had  never  heard  of  Shakespeare,  but  here  was 
something  he  could  appreciate.      Here  was  "a  profound 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS.  II 

impression,   full    of  inexplicable   emotion,   vague    desires, 
fleeting  lights,  that,  so  far,  lit  up  only  a  chaos." 

Oddly  enough,  his  earliest  literary  essay  was  the  trans- 
lation of  BUrger's  "  Lenore."  Here,  again,  he  encounters 
Scott ;  but  Scott  translated  the  ballad,  and  Dumas  failed. 
Les  mortes  vont  vite  I  the  same  refrain  woke  poetry  in  both 
the  Frenchman  and  the  Scotchman. 

"  Ha  !  ha  !  the  Dead  can  ride  w  ith  speed  : 
Dost  fear  to  ride  with  me  ?  " 

So  Dumas'  literary  career  began  with  a  defeat,  but  it  was 
always  a  beginning.  He  had  just  failed  with  "  Lenore," 
when  Leuven  asked  him  to  collaborate  in  a  play.  He  was 
utterly  ignorant,  he  says ;  he  had  not  succeeded  in  gallant 
efforts  to  read  through  "  Gil  Bias "  and  "  Don  Quixote." 
"  To  my  shame,"  he  writes,  "  the  man  has  not  been  more 
fortunate  with  those  masterpieces  than  the  boy"  He 
had  not  yet  heard  of  Scott,  Cooper,  Goethe;  he  had 
heard  of  Shakespeare  only  as  a  barbarian.  Other  plays 
the  boy  wrote — failures,  of  course — and  then  Dumas 
poached  his  way  to  Paris,  shooting  partridges  on  the 
road,  and  paying  the  hotel  expenses  by  his  success  in 
the  chase.  He  was  introduced  to  the  great  Talma :  what 
a  moment  for  Talma,  had  he  known  it !  He  saw  the 
theatres.  He  went  home,  but  returned  to  Paris,  drew  a 
small  prize  in  a  lottery,  and  sat  next  a  gentleman  at  the 
play,  a  gentleman  who  read  the  rarest  of  Elzevirs,  "  Le 
Pastissier  Fran9ais,"  and  gave  him  a  little  lecture  on  Elzevirs 
in  general.  Soon  this  gentleman  began  to  hiss  the  piece, 
and  was  turned  out.  He  was  Charles  Nodier,  and  one  of 
the  anonymous  authors  of  the  play  he  was  hissing !  I  own 
that  this  amusing  chapter  lacks  verisimilitude.     It  reads  as 


12  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

if  Dumas  had  chanced  to  "  get  up  "  the  subject  of  Elzevirs, 
and  had  fashioned  his  new  knowledge  ^into  a  little  story. 
He  could  make  a  story  out  of  anything — he  "turned  all 
to  favour  and  to  prettiness."  Could  I  translate  the  whole 
passage,  and  print  it  here,  it  would  be  longer  than  this 
article ;  but,  ah,  how  much  more  entertaining !  For 
whatever  Dumas  did  he  did  with  such  life,  spirit,  wit,  he 
told  it  with  such  vivacity,  that  his  whole  career  is  one  long 
romance  of  the  highest  quality.  Lassagne  told  him  he 
he  must  read — must  read  Goethe,  Scott,  Cooper,  Froissart, 
Joinville,  Brantome.  He  read  them  to  some  purpose.  He 
entered  the  service  of  the  Due  d'Orleans  as  a  clerk,  for 
he  wrote  a  clear  hand,  and,  happily,  wrote  at  astonishing 
speed.  He  is  said  to  have  written  a  short  play  in  a  cottage 
where  he  went  to  rest  for  an  hour  or  two  after  shooting 
all  the  morning.  The  practice  in  a  notary's  office  stood 
him,  as  it  stood  Scott,  in  good  stead.  When  a  dog  bit 
his  hand  he  managed  to  write  a  volume  without  using 
his  thumb.  I  have  tried  it,  but  forbear — in  mercy  to  the 
printers.  He  performed  wild  feats  of  rapid  caligraphy  when 
a  clerk  under  the  Due  d'Orleans,  and  he  wrote  his  plays 
in  one  "  hand,"  his  novels  in  another.  The  "  hand  "  used 
in  his  dramas  he  acquired  when,  in  days  of  poverty,  he 
used  to  write  in  bed.  To  this  habit  he  also  attributed  the 
brutalite  of  his  earlier  pieces,  but  there  seems  to  be  no 
good  reason  why  a  man  should  write  like  a  brute  because 
it  is  in  bed  that  he  writes. 

In  those  days  of  small  things  he  fought  his  first  duel, 
and  made  a  study  of  Fear  and  Courage.  His  earliest 
impulse  was  to  rush  at  danger ;  if  he  had  to  wait,  he  felt 
his  courage  oozing  out  at  the  tips  of  his  fingers,  like  Bob 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS.  13 

Acres,  but  in  the  moment  of  peril  he  was  himself  again. 
In  dreams  he  was  a  coward,  because,  as  he  argues,  the 
natural  man  is  a  poltroon,  and  conscience,  honour,  all  the 
spiritual  and  commanding  part  of  our  nature,  goes  to  sleep 
in  dreams.  The  animal  terror  asserts  itself  unchecked. 
It  is  a  theory  not  without  exceptions.  In  dreams  one  has 
plenty  of  conscience  (at  least  that  is  my  experience),  though 
it  usually  takes  the  form  of  remorse.  And  in  dreams  one 
often  affronts  dangers  which,  in  waking  hours,  one  might 
probably  avoid  if  one  could. 

Dumas'  first  play,  an  unimportant  vaudeville,  was  acted 
in  1825.  His  first  novels  were  also  published  then;  he 
took  part  of  the  risk,  and  only  four  copies  were  sold.  He 
afterward  used  the  ideas  in  more  mature  works,  as  Mr. 
Sheridan  Le  Fanu  employed  three  or  four  times  (with 
perfect  candour  and  fairness)  the  most  curious  incident  in 
"Uncle  Silas."  Like  Mr.  Arthur  Pendennis,  Dumas  at 
this  time  wrote  poetry  "  up  to "  pictures  and  illustrations. 
It  is  easy,  but  seldom  lucrative  work.  He  translated  a  play 
of  Schiller's  into  French  verse,  chiefly  to  gain  command  of 
that  vehicle,  for  his  heart  was  fixed  on  dramatic  success. 
Then  came  the  visit  of  Kean  and  other  English  actors  to  Paris. 
He  saw  the  true  Hamlet^  and,  for  the  first  time  on  any  stage, 
"  the  play  of  real  passions."  Emulation  woke  in  him :  a 
casual  work  of  ait  led  him  to  the  story  of  Christina  of 
Sweden,  he  wrote  his  play  Christine  (afterward  recon- 
structed) ;  he  read  it  to  Baron  Taylor,  who  applauded  ;  the 
Com^die  Frangaise  accepted  it,  but  a  series  of  intrigues 
disappointed  him,  after  all.  His  energy  at  this  moment 
was  extraordinary,  for  he  was  very  poor,  his  mother  had  a 


14  ESSAYS  IN  L/TTLE.  ■ 

stroke  of  paralysis,  his  bureau  was  always  bullying  and 
interfering  with  him.  But  nothing  could  snub  this  "  force 
of  nature,"  and  he  immediately  produced  his  Henri 
Trots,  the  first  romantic  drama  of  France.  This  had  an 
instant  and  noisy  success,  and  the  first  night  of  the  play  he 
spent  at  the  theatre,  and  at  the  bedside  of  his  unconscious 
mother.  The  poor  lady  could  not  even  understand  whence 
the  flowers  came  that  he  laid  on  her  couch,  the  flowers 
thrown  to  the  young  man — yesterday  unknown,  and  to-day 
the  most  famous  of  contemporary  names.  All  this  tale  of 
triumph,  checkered  by  enmities  and  diversified  by  duels, 
Dumas  tells  with  the  vigour  and  wit  of  his  novels.  He  is  his 
own  hero,  and  loses  nothing  in  the  process  ;  but  the  other 
characters — Taylor,  Nodier,  the  Due  d'Orleans,  the  spiteful 
press-men,  the  crabbed  old  officials — all  live  like  the  best 
of  the  persons  in  his  tales.  They  call  Dumas  vain :  he  had 
reason  to  be  vain,  and  no  candid  or  generous  reader  will  be 
shocked  by  his  pleasant,  frank,  and  artless  enjoyment  of 
himself  and  of  his  adventures.  Oddly  enough,  they  are 
small-minded  and  small-hearted  people  who  are  most 
shocked  by  what  they  call  "  vanity  "  in  the  great.  Dumas' 
delight  in  himself  and  his  doings  is  only  the  flower  of  his 
vigorous  existence,  and  in  his  "  Memoires,"  at  least,  it  is  as 
happy  and  encouraging  as  his  laugh,  or  the  laugh  of  Porthos ; 
it  is  a  kind  of  radiance,  in  which  others,  too,  may  bask  and 
enjoy  themselves.  And  yet  it  is  resented  by  tiny  scribblers, 
frozen  in  their  own  chill  self-conceit. 

There  is  nothing  incredible  (if  modern  researches  are 
accurate)  in  the  stories  he  tells  of  his  own  success  in 
Hypnotism,  as  it  is  called  now,  Mesmerism  or  Magnetism 
as  it  was  called  then.     Who  was  likely  to  possess  these 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS.  15 

powers,  if  not  this  good-humoured  natural  force ?  "I 
believe  that,  by  aid  of  magnetism,  a  bad  man  might  do 
much  mischief.  I  doubt  whether,  by  help  of  magnetism, 
a  good  man  can  do  the  slightest  good,"  he  says,  probably 
with  perfect  justice.  His  dramatic  success  fired  Victor 
Hugo,  and  very  pleasant  it  is  to  read  Dumas'  warm-hearted 
praise  of  that  great  poet.  Dumas  had  no  jealousy — no 
more  than  Scott.  As  he  believed  in  no  success  without 
talent,  so  he  disbelieved  in  genius  which  wins  no  success. 
"  Je  ne  crois  pas  au  talent  ignore,  au  g^nie  inconnu,  moi." 
Genius  he  saluted  wherever  he  met  it,  but  was  incredulous 
about  invisible  and  inaudible  genius  ;  and  I  own  to  sharing 
his  scepticism.  People  who  complain  of  Dumas'  vanity 
may  be  requested  to  observe  that  he  seems  just  as  "  vain  " 
of  Hugo's  successes,  or  of  Scribe's,  as  of  his  own,  and  just 
as  much  delighted  by  them. 

He  was  now  struck,  as  he  walked  on  the  boulevard  one 
day,  by  the  first  idea  of  Antony — an  idea  which,  to  be 
fair,  seems  rather  absurd  than  tragic,  to  some  tastes.  "  A 
lover,  caught  with  a  married  woman,  kills  her  to  save  her 
character,  and  dies  on  the  scaffold."  Here  is  indeed  a  part 
to  tear  a  cat  in  I 

The  performances  of  M.  Dumas  during  the  Revolution 
of  1830,  are  they  not  written  in  the  Book  of  the  Chronicles 
of  Alexandre  the  Great?  But  they  were  not  literary  ex- 
cellences which  he  then  displayed,  and  we  may  leave  this 
king-maker  to  hover,  "  like  an  eagle,  above  the  storms  of 
anarchy." 

Even  to  sketch  his  later  biography  is  beyond  our  province. 
In  1830  he  had  forty  years  to  run,  and  he  filled  the  cup  of 


i6  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

the  Hours  to  the  brim  with  activity  and  adventure.  His 
career  was  one  of  unparalleled  production,  punctuated  by 
revolutions,  voyages,  exiles,  and  other  intervals  of  repose. 
The  tales  he  tells  of  his  prowess  in  1830,  and  with  Garibaldi, 
seem  credible  to  me,  and  are  borne  out,  so  far,  by  the 
narrative  of  M.  Maxime  Ducamp,  who  met  him  at  Naples, 
in  the  Garibaldian  camp.  Like  Mr.  Jingle,  in  "  Pickwick," 
he  "banged  the  field-piece,  twanged  the  lyre,"  and  was 
potting  at  the  foes  of  the  republic  with  a  double-barrelled 
gun,  when  he  was  not  composing  plays,  romances,  memoirs, 
criticisms.  He  has  told  the  tale  of  his  adventures  with  the 
Comddie  Fran9aise,  where  the  actors  laughed  at  his  Antony, 
and  where  Madame  Mars  and  he  quarrelled  and  made  it 
up  again.  His  plays  often  won  an  extravagant  success ;  his 
novels — his  great  novels,  that  is — made  all  Europe  his  friend. 
He  gained  large  sums  of  money,  which  flowed  out  of  his 
fingers,  though  it  is  said  by  some  that  his  Abbotsford, 
Monte  Cristo,  was  no  more  a  palace  than  the  villa  which  a 
retired  tradesman  builds  to  shelter  his  old  age.  But  the 
money  disappeared  as  fast  as  if  Monte  Cristo  had  really 
been  palatial,  and  worthy  of  the  fantasy  of  a  Nero.  He 
got  into  debt,  fled  to  Belgium,  returned,  founded  the 
Mousquetaire,  a  literary  paper  of  the  strangest  and  most 
shiftless  kind.  In  "  Alexandre  Dumas  a  la  Maison  d'Or," 
M.  Philibert  Audebrand  tells  the  tale  of  this  Micawber  of 
newspapers.  Everything  went  into  it,  good  or  bad,  and 
the  name  of  Dumas  was  expected  to  make  all  current  coin. 
For  Dumas,  unluckily,  was  as  prodigal  of  his  name  as  of 
his  gold,  and  no  reputation  could  bear  the  drafts  he 
made  on  his  celebrity.  His  son  says,  in  the  preface  to 
Le  Fils  Naturel :   "Tragedy,    dramas,    history,  romance. 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS.  17 

comedy,  travel,  you  cast  all  of  them  in  the  furnace  and  the 
mould  of  your  brain,  and  you  peopled  the  world  of  fiction 
with  new  creations.  The  newspaper,  the  book,  the  theatre, 
burst  asunder,  too  narrow  for  your  puissant  shoulders ;  yci 
fed  France,  Europe,  America  with  your  works ;  you  made 
the  wealth  of  publishers,  translators,  plagiarists;  printers 
and  copyists  toiled  after  you  in  vain.  In  the  fever  of 
production  you  did  not  always  try  and  prove  the  metal 
which  you  employed,  and  sometimes  you  tossed  into  the 
furnace  whatever  came  to  your  hand.  The  fire  made  the 
selection :  what  was  your  own  is  bronze,  what  was  not  yours 
vanished  in  smoke." 

The  simile  is  noble  and  worthy  of  the  Cyclopean  crafts- 
man, Dumas.  His  great  works  endured ;  the  plays  which 
renewed  the  youth  of  the  French  stage,  the  novels  which 
Thackeray  loved  to  praise,  these  remain,  and  we  trust  they 
may  always  remain,  to  the  delight  of  mankind  and  for  the 
sorrow  of  prigs. 

So  much  has  been  written  of  Dumas'  novels  that  criticism 
can  hardly  hope  to  say  more  that  is  both  new  and  true 
about  them.  It  is  acknowledged  that,  in  such  a  character 
as  Henri  III.,  Dumas  made  history  live,  as  magically  as 
Scott  revived  the  past  in  his  Louis  XI.,  or  Balfour  of 
Burley.  It  is  admitted  that  Dumas'  good  tales  are  told 
with  a  vigour  and  life  which  rejoice  the  heart;  that  his 
narrative  is  never  dull,  never  stands  still,  but  moves  with  a 
freedom  of  adventure  which  perhaps  has  no  parallel.  He 
may  fall  short  of  the  humour,  the  kindly  wisdom,  the  genial 
greatness  of  Sir  Walter  at  his  best,  and  he  has  not  that 
supernatural  touch,  that  tragic  grandeur,  which  Scott  inherits 

ly.  L.-i.  2 


18  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

from  Homer  and  from  Shakespeare.  In  another  Homeric 
quality,  xdpftr},  as  Homer  himself  calls  it,  in  the  "  delight  of 
battle  "  and  the  spirit  of  the  fray,  Scott  and  Dumas  are  alike 
masters.  Their  fights  and  the  fights  in  the  Icelandic  sagas 
are  the  best  that  have  ever  been  drawn  by  mortal  man, 
"W  hen  swords  are  aloft,  in  siege  or  on  the  greensward,  or  in 
the  midnight  chamber  where  an  ambush  is  laid,  Scott  and 
Dumas  are  indeed  themselves.  The  steel  rings,  the  bucklers 
clash,  the  parry  and  lunge  pass  and  answer  too  swift  for  the 
sight.  If  Dumas  has  not,  as  he  certainly  has  not,  the  noble 
philosophy  and  kindly  knowledge  of  the  heart  which  are 
Scott's,  he  is  far  more  swift,  more  witty,  more  diverting.  He 
is  not  prolix,  his  style  is  not  involved,  his  dialogue  is  as 
rapid  and  keen  as  an  assault  at  arms.  His  favourite  virtues 
and  graces,  we  repeat  it,  are  loyalty,  friendship,  gaiety,  gene- 
rosity, courage,  beauty,  and  strength.  He  is  himself  the 
friend  of  the  big,  stupid,  excellent  Porthos ;  of  Athos,  the 
noble  and  melancholy  swordsman  of  sorrow ;  of  D'Artagnan, 
the  indomitable,  the  trusty,  the  inexhaustible  in  resource ; 
but  his  heart  is  never  on  the  side  of  the  shifty  Aramis,  with 
with  all  his  beauty,  dexterity,  bravery,  and  brilliance.  The 
brave  Bussy,  and  the  chivalrous,  the  doomed  La  Mole,  are 
more  dear  to  him  ;  and  if  he  embellishes  their  characters, 
giving  them  charms  and  virtues  that  never  were  theirs, 
history  loses  nothing,  and  romance  and  we  are  the  gainers. 
In  all  he  does,  at  his  best,  as  in  the  "  Chevalier  d'Har- 
menthal,"  he  has  movement,  kindness,  courage,  and  gaiety. 
His  philosophy  of  life  is  that  old  philosophy  of  the  sagas 
and  of  Homer.  Let  us  enjoy  the  movement  of  the 
fray,  the  faces  of  fair  women,  the  taste  of  good  wine ; 
let    us    welcome    life    like    a    mistress,    let   us   welcome 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS.  19 

death  like  a  friend,  and  with  a  jest — if  death  comes  with 
honour. 

Dumas  is  no  pessimist.  "Heaven  has  made  but  one 
drama  for  man — the  world,"  he  writes,  *'  and  during  these 
three  thousand  years  mankind  has  been  hissing  it."  It  is 
certain  that,  if  a  moral  censorship  could  have  prevented  it 
this  great  drama  of  mortal  passions  would  never  have  been 
licensed  at  all,  never  performed.  But  Dumas,  for  one,  will 
not  hiss  it,  but  applauds  with  all  his  might — a  charmed 
spectator,  a  fortunate  actor  in  the  eternal  piece,  where  all 
the  men  and  women  are  only  players.  You  hear  his  manly 
laughter,  you  hear  his  mighty  hands  approving,  you  see  the 
tears  he  sheds  when  he  had  "  slain  Porthos  " — ^great  tears 
like  those  of  PantagiueL 

His  may  not  be  the  best,  nor  the  ultimate  philosophy, 
but  it  is  a  philosophy,  and  one  of  which  we  may  some  day 
feel  the  want.  I  read  the  stilted  criticisms,  the  pedantic 
carpings  of  some  modern  men  who  cannot  write  their  own 
language,  and  I  gather  that  Dumas  is  out  of  date.  There 
is  a  new  philosophy  of  doubts  and  delicacies,  of  dallyings 
and  refinements,  of  half-hearted  lookers-on,  desiring  and 
fearing  some  new  order  of  the  world.  Dumas  does  not 
dally  nor  doubt :  he  takes  his  side,  he  rushes  into  the 
smoke,  he  strikes  his  foe;  but  there  is  never  an  unkind 
word  on  his  lip,  nor  a  grudging  thought  in  his  heart. 

It  may  be  said  that  Dumas  is  not  a  master  of  words  and 
phrases,  that  he  is  not  a  raffine  of  expression,  nor  a  jeweller 
of  style.  ^^  hen  I  read  the  maunderings,  the  stilted  and 
staggering  sentences,  the  hesitating  phrases,  the  far-sought 
and  dear-bought   and   worthless    word-juggles;    the   sham 


20  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

scientific  verbiage,  the  native  pedantries  of  many  modern 
so-called  "stylists,"  I  rejoice  that  Dumas  was  not  one 
of  these.  He  told  a  plain  tale,  in  the  language  suited  to  a 
plain  tale,  with  abundance  of  wit  and  gaiety,  as  in  the 
reflections  of  his  Chicot,  as  in  all  his  dialogues.  But  he 
did  not  gnaw  the  end  of  his  pen  in  search  of  some  word 
that  nobody  had  ever  used  in  this  or  that  connection  before. 
The  right  word  came  to  him,  tre  simple  straightforward 
phrase.  Epithet-hunting  may  be  a  pretty  sport,  and  the 
bag  of  the  epithet-hunter  may  contain  some  agreeable 
epigrams  and  rare  specimens  of  style ;  but  a  plain  tale  of 
adventure,  of  love  and  war,  needs  none  of  this  industry, 
and  is  even  spoiled  by  inopportune  diligence.  Speed, 
directness,  lucidity  are  the  characteristics  of  Dumas'  style, 
and  they  are  exactly  the  characteristics  which  his  novels 
required.  Scott  often  failed,  his  most  loyal  admirers  may 
admit,  in  these  essentials ;  but  it  is  rarely  that  Dumas  fails, 
when  he  is  himself  and  at  his  best. 

In  spite  of  his  heedless  education,  Dumas  had  true 
critical  qualities,  and  most  admired  the  best  things.  We 
have  already  seen  how  he  writes  about  Shakespeare,  Virgil, 
Goethe,  Scott.  But  it  may  be  less  familiarly  known  that 
this  burly  man-of-all-work,  ignorant  as  he  was  of  Greek,  had 
a  true  and  keen  appreciation  of  Homer.  Dumas  declares 
that  he  only  thrice  criticised  his  contemporaries  in  an 
unfavourable  sense,  and  as  one  wishful  to  find  fault.  The 
victims  were  Casimir  Delavigne,  Scribe,  and  Ponsard.  On 
each  occasion  Dumas  declares  that,  after  reflecting,  he 
saw  that  he  was  moved  by  a  little  personal  pique,  not  by  a 
disinterested  love  of  art.     He  makes  his  confession  with  a 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS.  21 

rare  nobility  of  candour ;  and  yet  his  review  of  Ponsard  is 
worthy  of  him.  M.  Ponsard,  who,  like  Dumas,  was  no 
scholar,  wrote  a  play  styled  Ufysse,  and  borrowed  from 
the  Odyssey.  Dumas  follows  Ponsard,  Odyssey  in  hand, 
and  while  he  proves  that  the  dramatist  failed  to  understand 
Homer,  proves  that  he  himself  was,  in  essentials,  a  capable 
Homeric  critic.  Dumas  understands  that  far-off  heroic  age. 
He  lives  in  its  life  and  sympathises  with  its  temper.  Homer 
and  he  are  congenial ;  across  the  great  gulf  of  time  they 
exchange  smiles  and  a  salute. 

"  Oh  !  ancient  Homer,  dear  and  good  and  noble,  I  am 
minded  now  and  again  to  leave  all  and  translate  thee — I, 
who  have  never  a  word  of  Greek — so  empty  and  so 
dismal  are  the  versions  men  make  of  thee,  in  verse  or  in 
prose." 

How  Dumas  came  to  divine  Homer,  as  it  were,  through  a 
language  he  knew  not,  who  shall  say  ?  He  did  divine  him 
by  a  natural  sympathy  of  excellence,  and  his  chapters  on  the 
"  Ulysse  "  of  Ponsard  are  worth  a  wilderness  of  notes  by 
learned  and  most  un-Homeric  men.  For,  indeed,  who  can 
be  less  like  the  heroic  minstrel  than  the  academic  philo- 
logist ? 

This  universality  deserves  note.  The  Homeric  student 
who  takes  up  a  volume  of  Dumas  at  random  finds  that  he 
is  not  only  Homeric  naturally,  but  that  he  really  knows  his 
Homer.  What  did  he  not  know  ?  His  rapidity  in  reading 
must  have  been  as  remarkable  as  his  pace  with  the  pen. 
As  M.  Blaze  de  Bury  says :  **  Instinct,  experience,  memory 
were  all  his  ;  he  sees  at  a  glance,  he  compares  in  a  flash,  he 
understands  without  conscious  effort,  he  forgets  nothing 
that  he  has  read."    The  past  and  present  are  photographed 


33  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE, 

imperishably  on  his  brain,  he  knows  the  manners  of  all 
ages  and  all  countries,  the  names  of  all  the  arms  that  men 
have  used,  all  the  garments  they  have  worn,  all  the  dishes 
they  have  tasted,  all  the  terms  of  all  professions,  from 
swordsmanship  to  coach-building.  Other  authors  have  to 
wait,  and  hunt  for  facts ;  nothing  stops  Dumas :  he  knows 
and  remembers  everything.  Hence  his  rapidity,  his  facility, 
his  positive  delight  in  labour :  hence  it  came  that  he  might 
be  heard,  like  Dickens,  laughing  while  he  worked. 

This  is  rather  a  eulogy  than  a  criticism  of  Dumas.  His 
faults  are  on  the  surface,  visible  to  all  men.  He  was  not 
only  rapid,  he  was  hasty,  he  was  inconsistent ;  his  need  of 
money  as  well  as  his  love  of  work  made  him  put  his  hand 
to  dozens  of  perishable  things.  A  beginner,  entering  the 
forest  of  Dumas'  books,  may  fail  to  see  the  trees  for  the 
wood.  He  may  be  counselled  to  select  first  the  cycle  of 
d'Artagnan — the  "  Musketeers,"  "  Twenty  Years  After,"  and 
the  "Vicomte  de  Bragelonne."  Mr.  Stevenson's  delightful 
essay  on  the  last  may  have  sent  many  readers  to  it ;  I 
confess  to  preferring  the  youth  of  the  "  Musketeers "  to 
their  old  age.  Then  there  is  the  cycle  of  the  Valois, 
whereof  the  "  Dame  de  Monsereau  "  is  the  best — perhaps 
the  best  thing  Dumas  ever  wrote.  The  "  Tulipe  Noire  "  is 
a  novel  girls  may  read,  as  Thackeray  said,  with  confidence. 
The  "Chevalier  d'Harmenthal "  is  nearly  (not  quite)  as 
good  as  "  Quentin  Durward."  "Monte  Cristo"  has  the 
best  beginning — and  loses  itself  in  the  sands.  The  novels 
on  the  Revolution  are  not  among  the  most  alluring :  the 
famed  device  "  L.  P.  D."  {lilia  pedibus  destrue)  has  the  bad 
luck  to  suggest  "  London  Parcels  Delivery."    That  is  an 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS.  33 

accident,  but  the  Revolution  is  in  itself  too  terrible  and 
pitiful,  and  too  near  us  (on  both  sides !)  for  fiction. 

On  Dumas'  faults  it  has  been  no  pleasure  to  dwell.  In 
a  recent  work  I  find  the  Jesuit  Le  Moyne  quoted,  saying 
about  Charles  V. :  "  What  need  that  future  ages  should  be 
made  acquainted  so  religious  an  Emperor  was  not  always 
chaste ! "  The  same  reticence  allures  one  in  regard  to  so 
delightful  an  author  as  Dumas.  He  who  had  enriched  so 
many  died  poor ;  he  who  had  told  of  conquering  France, 
died  during  the  Terrible  Year.  But  he  could  forgive,  could 
appreciate,  the  valour  of  an  enemy.  Of  the  Scotch  at 
Waterloo  he  writes :  "  It  was  not  enough  to  kill  them : 
we  had  to  push  them  down."  Dead,  they  still  stood 
"  shoulder  to  shoulder."  In  the  same  generous  temper  an 
English  cavalry  officer  wrote  home,  after  Waterloo,  that  he 
would  gladly  have  given  the  rest  of  his  life  to  have  served, 
on  that  day,  in  our  infantry  or  in  the  French  cavalry.  These 
are  the  spirits  that  warm  the  heart,  that  make  us  all  friends ; 
and  to  the  great,  the  brave,  the  generous  Dumas  we  cry, 
across  the  years  and  across  the  tomb,  our  Ave  atqm  vale! 


MR.  STEVENSON'S  WORKS. 

PERHAPS  the  first  quality  in  Mr.  Stevenson's  works, 
now  so  many  and  so  various,  which  strikes  a 
reader,  is  the  buoyancy,  the  survival  of  the  child  in  him. 
He  has  told  the  world  often,  in  prose  and  verse,  how 
vivid  are  his  memories  of  his  own  infancy.  This  retention 
of  childish  recollections  he  shares,  no  doubt,  with  other 
people  of  genius  :  for  example,  with  George  Sand,  whose 
legend  of  her  own  infancy  is  much  more  entertaining, 
and  perhaps  will  endure  longer,  than  her  novels.  Her 
youth,  like  Scott's  and  like  Mr.  Stevenson's,  was  passed 
all  in  fantasy :  in  playing  at  being  some  one  else,  in  the 
invention  of  imaginary  characters,  who  were  living  to 
her,  in  the  fabrication  of  endless  unwritten  romances. 
Many  persons,  who  do  not  astonish  the  world  by  their 
genius,  have  lived  thus  in  their  earliest  youth.  But,  at 
a  given  moment,  the  fancy  dies  out  of  them :  this  often 
befalls  imaginative  boys  in  their  first  year  at  school. 
"  Many  are  called,  few  chosen  " ;  bat  it  may  be  said  with 
probable  truth,  that  there  has  never  been  a  man  of 
genius  in  letters,  whose  boyhood  was  not  thus  fantastic, 
"  an  isle  of  dreams."  We  know  how  Scott  and  De  Quincey 
inhabited  airy  castles ;  and  Gillies  tells  us,  though  Lockhart 
does  not,  that  Scott,  in  manhood,  was  occasionally  so  lost 


MR.  STEVENSON'S  WORKS.  2$ 

in   thought,  that  he   knew   not  where   he  was   nor    what 
he  was  doing. 

The  peculiarity  of  Mr.  Stevenson  is  not  only  to  have 
been  a  fantastic  child,  and  to  retain,  in  maturity,  that 
fantasy  ripened  into  imagination :  he  has  also  kept  up 
the  habit  of  dramatising  everything,  of  playing,  half  con- 
sciously, many  parts,  of  making  the  world  "  ari  unsubstantial 
fairy  place."  This  turn  of  mind  it  is  that  causes  his  work 
occasionally  to  seem  somewhat  freakish.  Thus,  in  the 
fogs  and  horrors  of  London,  he  plays  at  being  an  Arabian 
tale-teller,  and  his  "New  Arabian  Nights"  are  a  new 
kind  of  romanticism — Oriental,  freakish,  like  the  work  of 
a  changeling.  Indeed,  this  curious  genius,  springing  from  a 
family  of  Scottish  engineers,  resembles  nothing  so  much  as 
one  of  the  fairy  children,  whom  the  ladies  of  Queen  Proser- 
pina's court  used  to  leave  in  the  cradles  of  Border  keeps 
or  of  peasants'  cottages.  Of  the  Scot  he  has  little  but  the 
power  of  touching  us  with  a  sense  of  the  supernatural, 
and  a  decided  habit  of  moralising ;  for  no  Scot  of  genius 
has  been  more  austere  with  Robert  Burns.  On  the  other 
hand,  one  element  of  Mr.  Stevenson's  ethical  disquisitions 
is  derived  from  his  dramatic  habit.  His  optimism,  his 
gay  courage,  his  habit  of  accepting  the  world  as  very 
well  worth  living  in  and  looking  at,  persuaded  one  of 
his  critics  that  he  was  a  hard-hearted  young  athlete  of 
iron  frame.  Now,  of  the  athlete  he  has  nothing  but  his 
love  of  the  open  air  :  it  is  the  eternal  child  that  drives  him 
to  seek  adventures  and  to  sojourn  among  beach-combers 
and  savages.  Thus,  an  admiring  but  far  from  optimistic 
critic  may  doubt  whether  Mr.  Stevenson's  content  with  the 
world  is  not  "only  his  fun,"  as  Lamb  said  of  Coleridge's 


26  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

preaching;  whether  he  is  but  playing  at  being  the  happy 
warrior  in  Hfe ;  whether  he  is  not  acting  that  part,  himself 
to  himself.  At  least,  it  is  a  part  fortunately  conceived 
and  admirably  sustained:  a  difficult  part  too,  whereas 
that  of  the  pessimist  is  as  easy  as  whining. 

Mr.  Stevenson's  work  has  been  very  much  written  about, 
as  it  has  engaged  and  delighted  readers  of  every  age, 
station,  and  character.  Boys,  of  course,  have  been  specially 
addressed  in  the  books  of  adventure,  children  in  "A 
Child's  Garden  of  Verse,"  young  men  and  maidens  in 
"  Virginibus  Puerisque," — all  ages  in  all  the  curiously  varied 
series  of  volumes.  "  Kidnapped "  was  one  of  the  last 
books  which  the  late  Lord  Iddesleigh  read ;  and  I  trust 
there  is  no  harm  in  mentioning  the  pleasure  which 
Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  took  in  the  same  story.  Critics  of 
every  sort  have  been  kind  to'  Mr.  Stevenson,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  the  few  who  first  became  acquainted 
with  his  genius  praised  it  with  all  the  warmth  of  which 
they  were  masters.  Thus  he  has  become  a  kind  of 
classic  in  his  own  day,  for  an  undisputed  reputation 
makes  a  classic  while  it  lasts.  But  was  ever  so  much 
fame  won  by  writings  which  might  be  called  scrappy 
and  desultory  by  the  advocatus  diaboWi  It  is  a  most 
miscellaneous  literary  baggage  that  Mr.  Stevenson  carries. 
First,  a  few  magazine  articles;  then  two  little  books  of 
sentimental  journeyings,  which  convince  the  reader  that 
Mr.  Stevenson  is  as  good  company  to  himself  as  his 
books  are  to  others.  Then  came  a  volume  or  two  of 
essays,  literary  and  social,  on  books  and  life.  By  this 
time  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Stevenson  had  a 
style  of  his  own,  modelled  to  some  extent  on  the  essayists 


MR.  STEVENSON'S  WORKS.  vj 

of  the  last  century,  but  with  touches  of  Thackeray ;  with 
original  breaks  and  turns,  with  a  delicate  freakishness, 
in  short,  and  a  determined  love  of  saying  things  as  the 
newspapers  do  not  say  them.  All  this  work  undoubtedly 
smelt  a  trifle  of  the  lamp,  and  was  therefore  dear  to  some 
and  an  offence  to  others.  For  my  part,  I  had  delighted 
in  the  essays,  from  the  first  that  appeared  in  Mac- 
mulattos  Magazine,  shortly  after  the  Franco-German  war. 
In  this  little  study,  "Ordered  South,"  Mr.  Stevenson 
was  employing  himself  in  extracting  all  the  melancholy 
pleasure  which  the  Riviera  can  give  to  a  wearied  body 
and  a  mind  resisting  the  clouds  of  early  malady. 

••  Alas,  the  worn  and  broken  board, 

How  can  it  bear  the  painter's  dye  ! 
The  harp  of  strained  and  tuneless  chord. 

How  to  the  minstrel's  skill  reply  ! 
To  aching  eyes  each  landscape  lowers, 

To  feverish  pulse  each  gale  blows  chill. 
And  Araby's  or  Eden's  bowers 

Were  barren  as  this  moorland  hill,  "— 

wrote  Scott,  in  an  hour  of  malady  and  depression.  But 
this  was  not  the  spirit  of  "  Ordered  South  " :  the  younger 
soul  rose  against  the  tyranny  of  the  body;  and  that  familiar 
glamour  which,  in  illness,  robs  Tintoretto  of  his  glow,  did 
not  spoil  the  midland  sea  to  Mr.  Stevenson.  His  gallant 
and  cheery  stoicism  were  already  with  him ;  and  so  perfect, 
if  a  trifle  overstudied,  was  his  style,  that  one  already 
foresaw  a  new  and  charming  essayist. 

But  none  of  those  early  works,  nor  the  delightful  book  on 
Edinburgh,  prophesied  of  the  story  teller.  Mr.  Stevenson's 
first  published  tales,  the  "  New  Arabian  Nights,"  originally 
appeared  in  a  quaintly  edited  weekly  paper,  which  nobody 


28  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

read,  or  nobody  but  the  writers  in  its  columns.  They 
welcomed  the  strange  romances  with  rejoicings  :  but  perhaps 
there  was  only  one  of  them  who  foresaw  that  Mr.  Stevenson's 
forte  was  to  be  fiction,  not  essay  writing ;  that  he  was  to 
appeal  with  success  to  the  large  public,  and  not  to  the  tiny 
circle  who  surround  the  essayist.  It  did  not  seem  likely 
that  our  incalculable  public  would  make  themselves  at 
home  in  those  fantastic  purlieus  which  Mr.  Stevenson's 
fancy  discovered  near  the  Strand.  The  impossible  Young 
Man  with  the  Cream  Tarts,  the  ghastly  revels  of  the  Suicide 
Club,  the  Oriental  caprices  of  the  Hansom  Cabs — who  could 
foresee  that  the  public  would  taste  them !  It  is  true  that 
Mr.  Stevenson's  imagination  made  the  President  of  the 
Club,  and  the  cowardly  member,  Mr.  Malthus,  as  real  as 
hey  were  terrible.  His  romance  always  goes  hand  in  hand 
with  reality;  and  Mr.  Malthus  is  as  much  an  actual  m  n 
of  skin  and  bone,  as  Silas  Lapham  is  a  man  of  flesh  and 
blood.  The  world  saw  this,  and  applauded  the  "  Noctes 
of  Prince  Floristan,"  in  a  fairy  London. 

Yet,  excellent  and  unique  as  these  things  were,  Mr. 
Stevenson  had  not  yet  "  found  himself."  It  would  be 
more  true  to  say  that  he  had  only  discovered  outlying 
skirts  of  his  dominions.  Has  he  ever  hit  on  the  road  to 
the  capital  yet?  and  will  he  ever  enter  it  laurelled,  and 
in  triumph?  That  is  precisely  what  one  may  doubt,  not 
as  without  hope.  He  is  always  making  discoveries  in  his 
realm ;  it  is  less  certain  that  he  will  enter  its  chief  city  in 
state.  His  next  work  was  rather  in  the  nature  of  annexa- 
tion and  invasion  than  a  settling  of  his  own  realms. 
"  Prince  Otto "  is  not,  to  my  mind,  a  ruler  in  his  proper 
soil.     The  provinces  of  George  Sand  and  of  Mr.  George 


MR.  STEVENSON'S  WORKS.  29 

Meredith  have  been  taken  captive.  "Prince  Otto"  is 
fantastic  indeed,  but  neither  the  fantasy  nor  the  style  is 
quite  Mr.  Stevenson's.  There  are  excellent  passages,  and 
the  Scotch  soldier  of  fortune  is  welcome,  and  the  ladies 
abound  in  subtlety  and  wit.  But  the  book,  at  least  to  myself, 
seems  an  extremely  elaborate  and  sk\\(\x\pastich;.  I  cannot 
believe  in  the  persons :  I  vaguely  smell  a  moral  allegory 
(as  in  "  Will  of  the  Mill ").  I  do  not  clearly  understand  what 
it  is  all  about.  The  scene  is  fairyland ;  but  it  is  not  the 
fairyland  of  Perrault.  The  ladies  are  beautiful  and  witty ; 
but  they  are  escaped  from  a  novel  of  Mr.  Meredith's, 
and  have  no  business  here.  The  book  is  no  more  Mr. 
Stevenson's  than  "The  Tale  of  Two  Cities"  was  Mr. 
Dickens's. 

It  was  probably  by  way  of  mere  diversion  and  child's 
play  that  Mr.  Stevenson  began  "Treasure  Island."  He  is 
an  amateur  of  boyish  pleasures  of  masterpieces  at  a  penny 
plain  and  twopence  coloured.  Probably  he  had  looked  at 
the  stories  of  adventure  in  penny  papers  which  only  boys 
read,  and  he  determined  sportively  to  compete  with  their 
unknown  authors.  "  Treasure  Island  "  came  out  in  such  a 
periodical,  with  the  emphatic  woodcuts  which  adorn  them. 
It  is  said  that  the  puerile  public  was  not  greatly  stirred.  A 
story  is  a  story,  and  they  rather  preferred  the  regular 
purveyors.  The  very  faint  archaism  of  the  style  may  have 
alienated  them.  But,  when  "  Treasure  Island  "  appeared  as 
a  real  book,  then  every  one  who  had  a  smack  of  youth  left 
was  a  boy  again  for  some  happy  hours.  Mr.  Stevenson  had 
entered  into  another  province  of  his  realm :  the  king  had 
come  to  his  own  again. 

They  say  the  seamanship  is  inaccurate ;  I  care  no  more 


30  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

than  I  do  for  the  year  30.  They  say  too  many  people  are 
killed.  They  all  died  in  fair  fight,  except  a  victim  of  John 
Silver's.  The  conclusion  is  a  little  too  like  part  of  Poe's 
most  celebrated  tale,  but  nobody  has  bellowed  "  Plagiarist !" 
Some  people  may  not  look  over  a  fence:  Mr.  Stevenson,  if 
he  liked,  might  steal  a  horse, — the  animal  in  this  case  is  only 
a  skeleton.  A  very  sober  student  might  add  that  the  hero  is 
impossibly  clever  \  but,  then,  the  hero  is  a  boy,  and  this  is 
a  boy's  book.  For  the  rest,  the  characters  live.  Only 
genius  could  have  invented  John  Silver,  that  terribly 
smooth-spoken  mariner.  Nothing  but  genius  could  have 
drawn  that  simple  yokel  on  the  island,  with  his  craving  for 
cheese  as  a  Christian  dainty.  The  blustering  Billy  Bones 
is  a  little  masterpiece :  the  blind  Pew,  with  his  tapping  stick 
(there  are  three  such  blind  tappers  in  Mr.  Stevenson's 
books),  strikes  terror  into  the  boldest.  Then,  the  treasure 
is  thoroughly  satisfactory  in  kind,  and  there  is  plenty  of 
it.  The  landscape,  as  in  the  feverish,  fog-smothered  flat,  is 
gallantly  painted.  And  there  are  no  interfering  petticoats 
in  the  story. 

As  for  the  '*  Black  Arrow,"  I  confess  to  sharing  the  dis- 
abilities of  the  "Critic  on  the  Hearth,"  to  whom  it  is 
dedicated.  "  Kidnapped  "  is  less  a  story  than  a  fragment ; 
but  it  is  a  noble  fragment.  Setting  aside  the  wicked  old 
uncle,  who  in  his  later  behaviour  is  of  the  house  of  Ralph 
Nickleby,  "Kidnapped"  is  all  excellent  —  perhaps  Mr. 
Stevenson's  masterpiece.  Perhaps,  too,  only  a  Scotchman 
knows  how  good  it  is,  and  only  a  Lowland  Scot  knows 
how  admirable  a  character  is  the  dour,  brave,  conceited 
David  Balfour.  It  is  like  being  in  Scotland  again  to  come 
on    "the    green    drive-road    running    wide    through    the 


MR.  STEVENSON'S  WORKS.  31 

heather,"  where  David  "  took  his  last  look  of  Kirk  Essen- 
dean,  the  trees  about  the  manse,  and  the  big  rowans  in  the 
kirkyard,  where  his  father  and  mother  lay."  Perfectly 
Scotch,  too,  is  the  mouldering,  empty  house  of  the  Miser, 
with  the  stamped  leather  on  the  walls.  And  the  Miser  is 
as  good  as  a  Scotch  Trapbois,  till  he  becomes  homicidal, 
and  then  one  fails  to  recognise  him  unless  he  is. a  little 
mad,  like  that  other  frantic  uncle  in  "The  Merry  Men." 
The  scenes  on  the  ship,  with  the  boy  who  is  murdered, 
are  better — I  think  more  real — than  the  scenes  of  piratical 
life  in  "  The  Master  of  Ballantrae."  The  fight  in  the  Round 
House,  even  if  it  were  exaggerated,  would  be  redeemed 
by  the  "  Song  of  the  Sword  of  Alan."  As  to  Alan  Breck 
himself,  with  his  valour  and  vanity,  his  good  heart,  his 
good  conceit  of  himself,  his  fantastic  loyalty,  he  is 
absolutely  worthy  of  the  hand  that  drew  Galium  Bey  and 
the  Dougal  creature.  It  is  just  possible  that  we  see,  in 
"Kidnapped,"  more  signs  of  determined  labour,  more 
evidence  of  touches  and  retouches,  than  in  "Rob  Roy." 
In  nothing  else  which  it  attempts  is  it  inferior ;  in  mastery 
of  landscape,  as  in  the  scene  of  the  lonely  rock  in  a  dry 
and  thirsty  land,  it  is  unsurpassed.  If  there  are  signs  of 
laboured  handling  on  Alan,  there  are  none  in  the  sketches 
of  Cluny  and  of  Rob  Roy's  son,  the  piper.  What  a 
generous  artist  is  Alan  !  "  Robin  Oig,"  he  said,  when  it 
was  done,  "ye  are  a  great  piper.  I  am  not  fit  to  blow 
in  the  same  kingdom  with  you.  Body  of  me !  ye  have 
mair  music  in  your  sporran  than  I  have  in  my  head." 

"  Kidnapped,"  we  said,  is  a  fragment.  It  ends  anywhere, 
or  nowhere,  as  if  the  pen  had  dropped  from  a  weary  hand. 
Thus,  and  for  other  reasons,  one  cannot  pretend  to  set 


32  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

what  is  not  really  a  whole  against  such  a  rounded  whole 
as  "Rob  Roy,"  or  against  "The  Legend  of  Montrose." 
Again,  "Kidnapped"  is  a  novel  without  a  woman  in  it: 
not  here  is  Di  Vernon,  not  here  is  Helen  McGregor. 
David  Balfour  is  the  pra^atic  Lowlander ;  he  does  not 
bear  comparison,  excellent  as  he  is,  with  Baillie  Nicol 
Jarvie,  the  humorous  Lowlander:  he  does  not  live  in  the 
memory  like  the  immortal  Baillie.  It  is  as  a  series  of 
scenes  and  sketches  that  "Kidnapped"  is  unmatched 
among  Mr.  Stevenson's  works. 

In  "The  Master  of  Ballantrae"  Mr.  Stevenson  makes  a 
gallant  effort  to  enter  what  I  have  ventured  to  call  the 
capital  of  his  kingdom.  He  does  introduce  a  woman,  and 
confronts  the  problems  of  love  as  well  as  of  fraternal 
hatred.  The  "  Master  "  is  studied,  is  polished  ad  unguem ; 
it  is  a  whole  in  itself,  it  is  a  remarkably  daring  attempt 
to  write  the  tragedy,  as,  in  "Waverley,"  Scott  wrote  the 
romance,  of  Scotland  about  the  time  of  the  Forty- Five.  With 
such  a  predecessor  and  rival,  Mr.  Stevenson  wisely  leaves 
the  pomps  and  battles  of  the  Forty-Five,  its  chivalry  and 
gallantry,  alone.  He  shows  us  the  seamy  side :  the  in- 
trigues, domestic  and  political ;  the  needy  Irish  adventurer 
with  the  Prince,  a  person  whom  Scott  had  not  studied. 
The  book,  if  completely  successful,  would  be  Mr.  Steven- 
son's "Bride  of  Lammermoor."  To  be  frank,  I  do  not 
think  it  completely  successful — a  victory  all  along  the  line. 
The  obvious  weak  point  is  Secundra  Dass,  that  Indian  of 
unknown  nationality  ;  for  surely  his  name  marks  him  as  no 
Hindoo.  The  Master  could  not  have  brought  him,  shivering 
like  Jos  Sedley's  black  servant,  to  Scotland.  As  in  America, 
this  alien  would  have  found  it  "  too  dam  cold."    My  powei 


MR.  STEVENSON'S  WORKS.  33 

of  belief  (which  verges  on  credulity)  is  staggered  by  the 
ghastly  attempt  to  reanimate  the  buried  Master.  Here,  at 
least  to  my  taste,  the  freakish  changeling  has  got  the  better 
of  Mr.  Stevenson,  and  has  brought  in  an  element  out  of 
keeping  with  the  steady  lurid  tragedy  of  fraternal  hatred. 
For  all  the  rest,  it  were  a  hard  judge  that  had  anything  but 
praise.  The  brilliant  blackguardism  of  the  Master ;  his  touch 
of  sentiment  as  he  leaves  Durisdeer  for  the  last  time,  with 
a  sad  old  song  on  his  Hps;  his  fascination;  his  ruthless- 
ness;  his  irony; — all  are  perfect.  It  is  not  very  easy  to 
understand  the  Chevalier  Bourke,  that  Barry  Lyndon,  with 
no  head  and  with  a  good  heart,  that  creature  of  a  be- 
wildered kindly  conscience ;  but  it  is  easy  to  like  him. 
How  admirable  is  his  undeflected  belief  in  and  affection 
for  the  Master !  How  excellent  and  how  Irish  he  is,  when 
he  buffoons  himself  out  of  his  perils  with  the  pirates  !  The 
scenes  are  brilliant  and  living,  as  when  the  Master  throws 
the  guinea  through  the  Hall  window,  or  as  in  the  darkling 
duel  in  the  garden.  It  needed  an  austere  artistic  con- 
science to  make  Henry,  the  younger  brother,  so  unlovable 
with  all  his  excellence,  and  to  keep  the  lady  so  true,  yet 
so  much  in  shadow.  This  is  the  best  woman  among  Mr. 
Stevenson's  few  women ;  but  even  she  is  almost  always 
reserved,  veiled  as  it  were. 

The  old  Lord,  again,  is  a  portrait  as  lifelike  as  Scott 
could  have  drawn,  and  more  delicately  touched  than  Scott 
would  have  cared  to  draw  it :  a  French  companion  picture 
to  the  Baron  Bradwardine.  The  whole  piece  reads  as  if 
Mr.  Stevenson  had  engaged  in  a  struggle  with  himself  as 
he  wrote.  The  sky  is  never  blue,  the  sun  never  shines : 
we   weary  for  a   "westland  wind."     There  is  something 

W.  L.-I.  , 


34  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE, 

"  thrawn,"  as  the  Scotch  say,  about  the  story  ;  there  is  often 
a  touch  of  this  sinister  kind  in  the  author's  work.  The 
language  is  extraordinarily  artful,  as  in  the  mad  lord's  words, 
"  I  have  felt  the  hilt  dirl  on  his  breast-bone."  And  yet, 
one  is  hardly  thrilled  as  one  expects  to  be,  when,  as 
Mackellar  says,  "the  week-old  corpse  looked  me  for  a 
moment  in  the  face." 

Probably  none  of  Mr.  Stevenson's  many  books  has  made 
his  name  so  familiar  as  "  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr  Hyde."  I 
read  it  first  in  manuscript,  alone,  at  night;  and,  when 
the  Butler  and  Mr.  Urmson  came  to  the  Doctor's  door, 
I  confess  that  I  threw  it  down,  and  went  hastily  to  bed. 
It  is  the  most  gruesome  of  all  his  writings,  and  so  per- 
fect that  one  can  complain  only  of  the  slightly  too  obvious 
moral;  and,  again,  that  really  Mr.  Hyde  was  more  of  a 
gentleman  than  the  unctuous  Dr.  Jekyll,  with  his  "  bed- 
side manner." 

So  here,  not  to  speak  of  some  admirable  short  stories 
like  "Thrawn  Janet,"  is  a  brief  catalogue — little  more — 
of  Mr.  Stevenson's  literary  baggage.  It  is  all  good,  though 
variously  good ;  yet  the  wise  world  asks  for  the  master- 
piece. It  is  said  that  Mr.  Stevenson  has  not  ventured  on 
the  delicate  and  dangerous  ground  of  the  novel,  because 
he  has  not  written  a  modern  love  story.  But  who  has  ? 
There  are  love  affairs  in  Dickens,  but  do  we  remember 
or  care  for  them  ?  Is  it  the  love  affairs  that  we  remem- 
ber in  Scott?  Thackeray  may  touch  us  with  Clive's  and 
Jack  Belsize's  misfortunes,  with  Esmond's  melancholy 
passion,  and  amuse  us  with  Pen  in  so  many  toils,  and 
interest  us  in  the  little  heroine  of  the  "Shabby  Genteel 
Story."     But  it    is   not  by  virtue   of  those  episodes   that 


MR.  STEVENSON'S  WORKS.  35 

Thackeray  is  so  great.  Love  stories  are  best  done  by 
women,  as  in  "  Mr.  Gilfil's  Love  Story " ;  and,  perhaps,  in 
an  ordinary  way,  by  writers  like  Trollope.  One  may 
defy  critics  to  name  a  great  English  author  in  fiction 
whose  chief  and  distinguishing  merit  is  in  his  pictures  of 
the  passion  of  Love.  Still,  they  all  give  Love  his  due 
stroke  in  the  battle,  and  perhaps  Mr.  Stevenson  will  do  so 
some  day.  But  I  confess  that,  if  he  ever  excels  himself, 
I  do  not  expect  it  to  be  in  a  love  story. 

Possibly  it  may  be  in  a  play.  If  he  again  attempt  the 
drama,  he  has  this  in  his  favour,  that  he  will  not  deal  in 
supernumeraries.  In  his  tales  his  minor  characters  are 
as  carefully  drawn  as  his  chief  personages.  Consider,  for 
example,  the  minister,  Henderland,  the  man  who  is  so 
fond  of  snuff,  in  "Kidnapped,"  and,  in  the  "Master  of 
Ballantrae,"  Sir  William  Johnson,  the  English  Governor. 
They  are  the  work  of  a  mind  as  attentive  to  details,  as 
ready  to  subordinate  or  obliterate  details  which  are  un- 
essential. Thus  Mr.  Stevenson's  writings  breathe  equally 
of  work  in  the  study  and  of  inspiration  from  adventure 
in  the  open  air,  and  thus  he  wins  every  vote,  and  pleases 
every  class  of  reader. 


THOMAS  HAYNES  BAYLY. 

I  CANNOT  sing  the  old  songs,  nor  indeed  any  others, 
but  I  can  read  them,  in  the  neglected  works  of  Thomas 
Haynes  Bayly.  The  name  of  Bayly  may  be  unfamiliar,  but 
every  one  almost  has  heard  his  ditties  chanted — every  one 
much  over  forty,  at  all  events.  "  I'll  hang  my  Harp  on 
a  Willow  Tree/'  and  "  I'd  be  a  Butterfly,"  and  "  Oh,  no ! 
we  never  mention  Her,"  are  dimly  dear  to  every  friend  of 
Mr.  Richard  Swiveller.  If  to  be  sung  everywhere,  to  hear 
your  verses  uttered  in  harmony  with  all  pianos  and  quoted 
by  the  world  at  large,  be  fame,  Bayly  had  it.  He  was  an 
unaffected  poet.  He  wrote  words  to  airs,  and  he  is  almost 
absolutely  forgotten.  To  read  him  is  to  be  carried  back 
on  the  wings  of  music  to  the  bowers  of  youth ;  and  to 
the  bowers  of  youth  I  have  been  wafted,  and  to  the  old 
booksellers.  You  do  not  find  on  every  stall  the  poems  of 
Bayly;  but  a  copy  in  two  volumes  has  been  discovered, 
edited  by  Mr.  Bayly's  widow  (Bentley,  1844).  They  saw  the 
light  in  the  same  year  as  the  present  critic,  and  perhaps 
they  ceased  to  be  very  popular  before  he  was  breeched. 
Mr.  Bayly,  according  to  Mrs.  Bayly,  "ably  penetru.ted  the 
sources  of  the  human  heart,"  like   Shakespeare  and  Mr, 


THOMAS  HAYNES  BAYLY.  37 

Howells.  He  also  "gave  to  minstrelsy  the  attributes  of 
intellect  and  wit."  and  "reclaimed  even  festive  song  from 
vulgarity,"  in  which,  since  the  age  of  Anacreon,  festive  song 
has  notoriously  wallowed.  The  poet  who  did  all  this  was 
born  at  Bath  in  Oct.  1797.  His  father  was  a  genteel 
solicitor,  and  his  great-grandmother  was  sister  to  Lord 
Delamere,  while  he  had  a  remote  baronet  on  the  mother's 
side.  To  trace  the  ancestral  source  of  his  genius  was 
difficult,  as  in  the  case  of  Gifted  Hopkins ;  but  it  was 
believed  to  flow  from  his  maternal  grandfather,  Mr.  Free- 
man, whom  his  friend,  Lord  Lavington,  regarded  as  "  one 
of  the  finest  poets  of  his  age."  Bayly  was  at  school  at 
Winchester,  where  he  conducted  a  weekly  college  news- 
paper. His  father,  like  Scott's,  would  have  made  him  a 
lawyer;  but  "the  youth  took  a  great  dislike  to  it,  for  his 
ideas  loved  to  dwell  in  the  regions  of  fancy,"  which  are 
closed  to  attorneys.  So  he  thought  of  being  a  clergyman, 
and  was  sent  to  St.  Mary's  Hall,  Oxford.  There  "he  did 
not  apply  himself  to  the  pursuit  of  academical  honours," 
but  fell  in  love  with  a  young  lady  whose  brother  he  had 
tended  in  a  fatal  illness.  But  "  they  were  both  too  wise 
to  think  of  living  upon  love,  and,  after  mutual  tears 
and  sighs,  they  parted  never  to  meet  again.  The  lady, 
though  grieved,  was  not  heartbroken,  and  soon  became 
the  wife  of  another."  They  usually  do.  Mr.  Bayly's 
regret  was  more  profound,  and  expressed  itself  in  the 
touching  ditty : 

*'  Oh,  no,  we  never  mention  her, 
Iler  name  is  never  beard, 
My  lips  are  now  forbid  to  speak 
That  once  familiar  word  ; 


38  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

From  sport  to  sport  they  hurry  me 

To  banish  my  regret, 
And  when  they  only  worry  me — 

[I  beg  Mr.  Bayly's  pardon] 

"  And  when  they  win  a  smile  from  me, 
They  fancy  I  forget. 

*'  They  bid  me  seek  in  change  of  scene 

The  charms  that  others  see, 
But  were  I  in  a  foreign  land 

They'd  find  no  change  in  me. 
Tis  true  that  I  behold  no  more 

The  valley  where  we  met  ; 

I  do  not  see  the  hawthorn  tree, 

But  how  can  I  forget  ?  " 
*  *  «  • 

**  They  tell  me  she  is  happy  now, 
[And  so  she  was,  in  fact.] 

The  gayest  of  the  gay  ; 
They  hint  that  she's  forgotten  me ; 

But  heed  not  what  they  say. 
Like  me,  perhaps,  she  struggles  with 

Each  feeling  of  regret : 
Tis  true  she's  married  Mr.  Smith, 

But,  ah,  does  she  forget ! " 

The  temptation  to  parody  is  really  too  strong ;  the  last 
lines,  actually  and  in  an  authentic  text,  are  : 

"  But  if  she  loves  as  I  have  loved. 
She  never  can  forget." 

Bayly  had  now  struck  the  note,  the  sweet,  sentimental 
note,  of  the  early,  innocent,  Victorian  age.  Jeames 
imitated  him : 

"  R.  Hangeline,  R.  Lady  mine, 
Dost  thou  remember  Jeames !  "* 


THOMAS  HAYNES  BAYLY.  39 

We  should  do  the  trick  quite  differently  now,  more  like 
this: 

*  Love  spake  to  me  and  said  t 

'  Oh,  lips,  be  mute  ; 
Let  that  one  name  be  dead, 
That  memory  flown  and  fled, 

Untouched  that  lute  ! 
Gj  forth,'  said  Love,  'with  willow  in  thy  hand, 

And  in  thy  hair 

Dead  blossoms  wear. 
Blown  from  the  sunless  land. 

** '  Go  forth,'  said  Love  ;  '  thou  never  more  shalt  see 
Her  shadow  glimmer  by  the  trysting  tree ; 

But  she  is  glad. 

With  roses  crowned  and  clad, 
Who  hath  forgotten  thee  !  ' 

But  I  made  answer  :  '  Love  ! 

Tell  me  no  more  thereof. 
For  she  has  drunk  of  that  same  cup  as  L 
Yea,  though  her  eyes  be  dry, 

She  gamers  there  for  me 

Tears  Salter  than  the  sea, 
Even  till  the  day  she  die.' 
So  gave  I  Love  the  lie." 

I  declare  I  nearly  weep  over  these  lines ;  for,  though  they 
are  only  Bayly's  sentiment  hastily  recast  in  a  modern  manner, 
there  is  something  so  very  affecting,  mouldy,  and  unwhole- 
some about  them,  that  they  sound  as  if  they  had  been 
"  written  up  to  "  a  sketch  by  a  disciple  of  Mr.  Rossetti's. 

In  a  mood  much  more  manly  and  moral,  Mr.  Bayly  wrote 
another  poem  to  the  young  lady  : 

"  May  thy  lot  in  life  be  happy,  undisturbed  by  thoughts  of  me, 
The  God  who  shelters  innocence  thy  guard  and  guide  will  be. 
Thy  heart  will  lose  the  chilling  sense  of  hopeless  love  at  last. 
And  the  sunshine  of  the  future  chase  the  shadows  of  the  past" 


40  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

It  is  as  easy  as  prose  to  sing  in  this  manner.   For  example : 

"  In  fact,  we  need  not  be  concerned  ;  '  at  last '  comes  very  soon,  and 
our  Emilia  quite  forgets  the  memory  of  the  moon,  the  moon  that  shone 
on  her  and  us,  the  woods  that -heard  our  vows,  the  moaning  of  the 
waters,  and  the  murmur  of  the  boughs.  She  is  happy  with  another,  and 
by  her  we're  quite  forgot ;  she  never  lets  a  thought  of  us  bring  shadow 
on  her  lot ;  and  if  we  meet  at  dinner  she's  too  clever  to  repine,  and 
mentions  us  to  Mr.  Smith  as  'An  old  flame  of  mine.'  And  shall  I 
grieve  that  it  is  thus  ?  and  would  I  have  her  weep,  and  lose  her  healthy 
appetite  and  break  her  healthy  sleep?  Not  so,  she's  not  poetical, 
though  ne'er  shall  I  forget  the  fairy  of  my  fancy  whom  I  once  thought 
I  had  met.  The  fairy  of  my  fancy  !  It  was  fancy,  most  things  are ; 
her  emotions  were  not  steadfast  as  the  shining  of  a  star  ;  but,  ah,  I  love 
h;r  image  yet,  as  once  it  shone  on  me,  and  swayed  me  as  the  low  moon 
sways  the  surging  of  the  sea." 

Among  other  sports  his  anxious  friends  hurried  the  love- 
lorn Bayly  to  Scotland,  where  he  wrote  much  verse,  and 
then  to  Dublin,  which  completed  his  "cure.  "  He  seemed 
in  the  "midst  of  the  crowd  the  gayest  of  all,  his  laughter 
rang  merry  and  loud  at  banquet  and  hall."  He  thought 
no  more  of  studying  for  the  Church,  but  went  back  to  Bath, 
met  a  Miss  Hayes,  was  fascinated  by  Miss  Hayes,  "  came, 
saw,  but  did  not  conquer  at  once,"  says  Mrs.  Haynes  Bayly 
i^nee  Hayes)  with  widow's  pride.  Her  lovely  name  was 
Helena ;  and  I  deeply  regret  to  add  that,  after  an  educa- 
tion at  Oxford,  Mr.  Bayly,  in  his  poems,  accentuated  the 
penultimate,  which,  of  course,  is  short. 

"  Oh,  think  not,  Helena,  of  leaving  us  yet," 

he  carolled,  when  it  would  have  been  just  as  easy,  and  a 
hundred  times  more  correct,  to  sing — 

"  Oh,  Helena,  think  not  of  leaving  us  yet" 
Miss  Hayes  had  lands  in  Ireland,  alas  !  and  Mr.  Bayly 


THOMAS  HAYNES  BAYLY.  41 

insinuated  that,  like  King  Easter  and  King  Wester  in  the 
ballad,  her  lovers  courted  her  for  her  lands  and  her  fee  ;  but 
he,  like  King  Honour, 

"  For  her  bonny  face 
And  for  her  fair  hodie." 

In  1825  (after  being  elected  to  the  Athenasum)  Mr.  Bayly 
"  at  last  found  favour-  in  the  eyes  of  Miss  Hayes."  He 
presented  her  with  a  little  ruby  heart,  which  she  accepted, 
and  they  were  married,  and  at  first  were  well-to-do, 
Miss  Hayes  being  the  heiress  of  Benjamin  Hayes,  Esq., 
of  Marble  Hill,  in  county  Cork.  A  friend  of  Mr.  Bayly's 
described  him  thus : 

"I  never  have  met  on  this  chilling  earth 

So  merry,  so  kind,  so  frank  a  youth, 
In  moments  of  pleasure  a  smile  all  mirth, 

In  moments  of  sorrow  a  heart  of  truth. 
I  have  heard  thee  praised,  I  have  seen  thee  led 

By  Fashion  along  her  gay  career  ; 
"While  beautiful  lips  have  often  shed 

Their  flattering  poison  In  thine  ear." 

Yet  he  says  that  the  poet  was  unspoiled.  On  his  honey- 
moon, at  Lord  Ashdown's,  Mr.  Bayly,  flying  from  some  fair 
sirens,  retreated  to  a  bower,  and  there  wrote  his  world- 
famous  "  I'd  be  a  Butterfly." 

Td  be  a  butterfly,  living  a  rover. 
Dying  when  fair  things  are  fading  away." 

The  place  in  which  the  deathless  strains  welled  from  the 
singer's  heart  was  henceforth  known  as  "  Butterfly  Bower." 
He  now  wrote  a  novel,  "  The  Aylmers,"  which  has  gone 
where  the  old  moons  go,  and  he  became  rather  a  literary 
lion,  and  made  the  acquaintance  of  Theodore  Hook.  The 
loss  of  a  son  caused  him  to  write  some  devotional  verses, 


42  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

which  were  not  what  he  did  best ;  and  now  he  began  to  try 
comedies.  One  of  them,  Sold  for  a  Song,  succeeded  very 
well.  In  the  stage-coach  between  Wycombe  Abbey  and 
London  he  wrote  a  successful  little  lever  de  rideau  called 
Perfection ;  and  it  was  lucky  that  he  opened  this  vein,  for 
his  wife's  Irish  property  got  into  an  Irish  bog  of  dishonesty 
and  difficulty.  Thirty-five  pieces  were  contributed  by  him 
to  the  British  stage.  After  a  long  illness,  he  died  on 
April  22nd,  1829.  He  did  not  live,  this  butterfly  minstrel, 
into  the  winter  of  human  age. 

Of  his  poems  the  inevitable  criticism  must  be  that  he 
was  a  Tom  Moore  of  much  lower  accomplishments.  His 
business  was  to  carol  of  the  most  vapid  and  obvious 
sentiment,  and  to  string  flowers,  fruits,  trees,  breeze,  sorrow, 
to-morrow,  knights,  coal-black  steeds,  regret,  deception,  and 
so  forth,  into  fervid  anapaestics.  Perhaps  his  success  lay  in 
knowing  exactly  how  little  sense  in  poetry  composers  will 
endure  and  singers  will  accept.  Why,  "  words  for  music  "  are 
almost  invariably  trash  now,  though  the  words  of  Elizabethan 
songs  are  better  than  any  music,  is  a  gloomy  and  difficult 
question.  Like  most  poets,  I  myself  detest  the  sister  art, 
and  don't  know  anything  about  it.  But  any  one  can  see 
that  words  like  Bayly's  are  and  have  long  been  much  more 
popular  with  musical  people  than  words  like  Shelley's, 
Keats's,  Shakespeare's,  Fletcher's,  Lovelace's,  or  Carew's. 
The  natural  explanation  is  not  flattering  to  musical  people  •. 
at  all  events,  the  singing  world  doted  on  Bayly. 

**  She  never  blamed  him — never, 
But  received  him  when  he  came 
With  a  welcome  sort  of  shiver, 
And  she  tried  to  look  the  same. 


THOMAS  HAYNES  BAYLY.  43 

"  But  vainly  she  dissembled. 

For  whene'er  she  tried  to  smile, 
A  tear  unbidden  trembled 
In  her  blue  eye  all  the  while." 

This  was  pleasant  for  "  him  " ;  but  the  point  is  that  these 
are  lines  to  an  Indian  air.  Shelley,  also,  about  the  same 
time,  wrote  Lines  to  an  Indian  air  ;  but  we  may  "  swear,  and 
save  our  oath,''  that  the  singers  preferred  Bayly's.  Tenny- 
son and  Coleridge  could  never  equal  the  popularity  of  what 
fellows.  I  shall  ask  the  persevering  reader  to  tell  me  where 
Bayly  ends,  and  where  parody  begins  : 

*  When  the  eye  of  beauty  closes, 

When  the  weary  are  at  rest, 
"When  the  shade  the  sunset  throws  is 

But  a  vapour  in  the  west ; 
When  the  moonlight  tips  the  billow 

With  a  wreath  of  silver  foam, 
And  the  whisper  of  the  willow 

Breaks  the  slumber  of  the  gnome, — 
Night  may  come,  but  sleep  will  lingef", 

When  the  spirit,  all  forlorn, 
Shuts  its  ear  against  the  singer, 

And  the  rustle  of  the  com 
Round  the  sad  old  mansion  sobbing 

Bids  the  wakeful  maid  recall 
Who  it  was  that  caused  the  throbbing 

Of  her  bosom  at  the  ball." 

Will  this  not  do  to  sing  just  as  well  as  the  original  ?  and  is 
it  not  true  that  "  almost  any  man  you  please  could  reel  it 
off  for  days  together "  ?  Anything  will  do  that  speaks  of 
forgetting  people,  and  of  being  forsaken,  and  about  the 
sunset,  and  the  ivy,  and  the  rose. 

"  Tell  me  no  more  that  the  tide  of  thine  anguish 
Is  red  as  the  heart's  blood  and  salt  as  the  sea  ; 


44  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

That  the  stars  in  their  courses  command  thee  to  languish, 
That  the  hand  of  enjoyment  is  loosened  from  thee  I 

"  Tell  me  no  more  that,  forgotten,  forsaken, 

Thou  roamest  the  wild  wood,  thou  sigh'st  on  the  shore. 
Nay,  rent  is  the  pledge  that  of  old  we  had  taken, 

And  the  words  that  have  bound  me,  they  bind  thee  no  more  ! 

'*  Ere  the  sun  had  gone  down  on  thy  sorrow,  the  maidens 
Were  wreathing  the  orange's  bud  in  thy  hair, 
And  the  trumpets  were  tuning  the  musical  cadence 
That  gave  thee,  a  bride,  to  the  baronet's  heir. 

"Farewell,  may  no  thought  pierce  thy  breast  of  thy  treason  ; 
Farewell,  and  be  happy  in  Hubert's  embrace. 
Be  the  belle  of  the  ball,  be  the  l)ride  of  the  season, 
With  diamonds  bedizened  and  languid  in  lace." 

This  is  mine,  and  I  say,  with  modest  pride,  that  it  is 
quite  as  good  as — 

**  Go,  may'st  thou  be  happy. 
Though  sadly  we  part, 
In  life's  early  summer 
Grief  breaks  not  the  heart. 

**  The  ills  that  assail  us 
As  speedily  pass 
As  shades  o'er  a  mirror. 
Which  stain  not  the  glass." 

Anybody  could  do  it,  we  say,  in  what  Edgar  Poe  calls 
"  the  mad  pride  of  intellectuality,"  and  it  certainly  looks  as 
if  it  could  be  done  by  anybody.  For  example,  take  Bayly 
as  a  moralist.  His  ideas  are  out  of  the  centre.  This  is 
about  his  standard : 

"CRUELTY. 

** '  Break  not  the  thread  the  spider 
Is  labouring  to  weave.' 
I  said,  nor  as  I  eyed  her 

Could  dream  she  would  deceive. 


THOMAS  HAYNES  BAYLY.  45 

*'  Her  brow  was  pure  and  candid, 
Her  tender  eyes  above ; 
And  I,  if  ever  man  did, 
Fell  hopelessly  in  love. 

*'  For  who  could  deem  that  cruel 
So  fair  a  face  might  be  ? 
That  eyes  so  like  a  jewel 
Were  only  paste  for  me  ? 

**I  wove  my  thread,  aspiring 
Within  her  heart  to  climb ; 
I  wove  with  zeal  untiring 
For  ever  such  a  time  ! 

*'  Bat,  ah  !  that  thread  was  broken 
All  by  her  fingers  fair, 
The  vows  and  prayers  I've  spoken 
Are  vanished  into  air  1 " 

Did  Bayly  write  that  ditty  or  did  I  ?  Upon  my  woid,  I 
can  hardly  tell.  I  am  being  hypnotised  by  Bayly.  I  lisp 
in  numbers,  and  the  numbers  come  like  mad.  I  can 
hardly  ask  for  a  light  without  abounding  in  his  artless 
vein.  Easy,  easy  it  seems ;  and  yet  it  was  Bayly  after  all, 
not  you  nor  I,  who  wrote  the  classic — 

**  I'll  hang  my  harp  on  a  willow  tree. 

And  rifgo  to  the  war  again, 
For  a  peaceful  home  has  no  charm  for  me, 

A  battlefield  no  pain  ; 
The  lady  I  love  will  soon  be  a  bride, 

With  a  diadem  on  her  brow. 
Ah,  why  did  she  flatter  my  boyish  pride? 

She  is  going  to  leave  me  now  1 " 

It  is  like  listening,  in  the  sad  yellow  evening,  to  the 
strains  of  a  barrel  organ,  faint  and  sweet,  and  far  away. 
A  world  of  memories  come  jigging  back — foolish  fancies, 


46  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

dreams,  desires,  all  beckoning  and  bobbing  to  the  old 
tune : 

"  Oh  had  I  but  loved  with  a  boyish  love, 
It  would  have  been  well  for  me." 

How  does  Bayly  manage  it  ?  What  is  the  trick  of  it,  the 
obvious,  simple,  meretricious  trick,  which  somehow,  after 
all,  let  us  mock  as  we  will,  Bayly  could  do,  and  we  cannot  ? 
He  really  had  a  slim,  serviceable,  smirking,  and  sighing 
little  talent  of  his  own  \  and — well,  we  have  not  even  that. 
Nobody  forgets 

"The  lady  I  love  will  soon  be  a  bride." 

Nobody  remembers  our  cultivated  epics  and  esoteric 
sonnets,  oh  brother  minor  poet,  mon  semblabk,  mon  frere  I 
Nor  can  we  rival,  though  we  publish  our  books  on  the 
largest  paper,  the  buried  popularity  of 

"  Gaily  the  troubadour 

Touched  his  guitar 
When  he  was  hastening 

Home  from  the  war, 
Singing,  "From  Palestine 

Hither  I  come, 
Lady  love  !  Lady  love  ! 

Welcome  me  home  !" 

Of  course  this  is,  historically,  a  very  incorrect  rendering  of 

a  Languedoc  crusader ;  and  the  impression  is  not  mediaeval, 

but  of  the  comic  opera.     Any  one  of  us  could  get  in  more 

local  colour  for  the  money,  and  give  the  crusader  a  cithern 

or  citole  instead  of  a  guitar.     This  is  how  we  should  do 

"  Gaily  the  Troubadour  "  nowadays  : — 

'*  Sir  Ralph  he  is  hardy  and  mickle  of  might. 
Ha,  la  belle  blanche  aubepine  ! 
Soldans  seven  hath  he  slain  in  fight, 
Honiuur  h  la  belle  Isoline  ! 


THOMAS  HAYNES  BAYLY.  47 

**  Sir  Ralph  he  rideth  in  riven  mail, 
Ha,  la  belle  blanche  aubepine  ! 
Beneath  his  nasal  is  his  dark  face  pale, 
Honneur  h  la  belle  Isoline  ! 

*'  His  eyes  they  blaze  as  the  burning  coal. 
Ha,  la  belle  blanche  aubepine  ! 
He  smiteth  a  stave  on  his  gold  citole, 
"  Honneur  h  la  belle  Isoline  ! 

*'  From  her  mangonel  she  looketh  forth, 
Ha,  la  belle  blanche  aubepine ! 
*  Who  is  he  spurreth  so  late  to  the  north?' 
Honneur  ^  la  belle  Isoline  ! 

*'  Ilatk  !  for  he  speaketh  a  knightly  name, 
Ha,  la  belle  blanche  aubJpine  ! 
And  her  wan  cheek  glows  as  a  burning  flame, 
Honneur  ^  la  belle  Isoline  I 

"For  Sir  Ralph  he  is  hardy  and  mickle  of  might, 
Ha,  la  belle  blanche  aubSpine  ! 
And  his  love  shall  ungirdle  his  sword  to-night, 
Honneur  d  la  belle  Isoline  !  " 

Such  is  the  romantic,  esoteric,  old  French  way  of 
saying — 

"  Hark,  'tis  the  troubadour 

Breathing  her  name 

Under  the  battlement  ; 

Softly  he  came, 
Singing,  "  From  Palestine 

Hither  I  come. 
Lady  love !     Lady  love  I 
Welcome  me  home  ! " 

The  moral  of  all  this  is  that  minor  poetry  has  its  fashions, 
and  that  the  butterfly  Bayly  could  versify  very  successfully  in 
the  fashion  of  a  time  simpler  and  less  pedantic  than  our  own. 
On  the  whole,  minor  poetry  for  minor  poetry,  this  artless 
singer,  piping  his  native  drawing-room  notes,  gave  a  great 
deal  of  perfectly  harmless,  if  highly  uncultivated,  enjoymeni. 


48  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

It  must  not  be  fancied  that  Mr.  Bayly  had  only  one  string 
to  his  bow — or,  rather,  to  his  lyre.  He  wrote  a  great  deal, 
to  be  sure,  about  the  passion  of  love,  which  Count  Tolstoi 
thinks  we  make  too  much  of.  He  did  not  dream  that  the 
affairs  of  the  heart  should  be  regulated  by  the  State — by 
the  Permanent  Secretary  of  the  Marriage  Office.  That  is 
what  we  are  coming  to,  of  course,  unless  the  enthusiasts  of 
"  free  love  "  and  "  go  away  as  you  please  "  failed  with  their 
little  programme.  No  doubt  there  would  be  poetry  if  the 
State  regulated  or  left  wholly  unregulated  the  affections 
of  the  future.  Mr.  Bayly,  living  in  other  times,  among 
other  manners,  piped  of  the  hard  tyranny  of  a  mother : 

"  We  met,  'twas  in  a  crowd,  and  I  thought  he  would  bhun  me. 
He  came,  I  could  not  breathe,  for  hi-i  eye  was  upon  me. 
He  spoke,  his  words  were  cold,  and  his  smile  was  unaltered, 
knew  how  much  he  felt,  for  his  deep-toned  voice  faltered. 
I  wore  my  bridal  robe,  and  I  rivalled  its  whiteness  ; 
Bright  gems  were  in  my  hair, — how  I  hated  their  brightness  I 
He  called  me  by  my  name  as  the  bride  of  another. 
Oh,  thou  hast  been  the  cause  of  this  anguish,  my  mother  ! " 

In  future,  when  the  reformers  of  marriage  have  had  their 

way,  we  shall  read : 

"The  world  may  think  me  gay,  for  I  bow  to  my  fate  ; 
But  thou  hast  been  the  cause  of  my  anguish,  O  State  ! " 

For  even  when  true  love  is  regulated  by  the  County 
Council  or  the  village  community,  it  will  still  persist  in  not 
running  smooth. 

Of  these  passions,  then,  Mr.  Bayly  could  chant ;  but  let 
us  remember  that  he  could  also  dally  with  old  romance, 
that  he  wrote : 

"The  mistletoe  hung  in  the  castle  hall, 
The  holly  branch  shone  on  the  eld  oak  wall." 


THOMAS  HAYNES  BAYLY.  49 

When  the  bride  unluckily  got  into  the  ancient  chest, 

"  It  closed  with  a  spring.     And,  dreadful  doom, 
The  bride  lay  clasped  in  her  living  tomb," 

SO  that  her  lover  "  mourned  for  his  fairy  bride,"  and  nevei 
found  out  her  premature  casket.  This  was  true  romance  as 
understood  when  Peel  was  consul.  Mr.  Bayly  was  rarely 
political;  but  he  commemorated  the  heroes  of  Waterloo, 
our  last  victory  worth  mentioning  : 

"Yet  mourn  not  for  them,  for  in  future  tradition 
Their  fame  shall  abide  as  our  tutelar  star, 
To  iintil  by  examf>U  the  glo-ious  ambition 
Of  falling,  like  them,  in  a  glorious  war. 
Though  tears  may  be  seen  in  the  bright  eyes  of  beauty, 

One  consolation  must  ever  remain  : 
Undaunted  they  trod  in  the  pathway  of  duty, 
Which  led  them  to  glory  on  Waterloo's  plain." 

Could  there  be  a  more  simple  Tyrtaeus?  and  who  that 
reads  him  will  not  be  ambitious  of  falling  in  a  glorious  war  ? 
Bayly,  indeed,  is  always  simple.     He  is  "  simple,  sensuous, 
and  passionate,"  and  Milton  asked  no  more  from  a  poet 
"A  wreath  of  orange  blossoms. 
When  next  we  met,  she  wore. 
The  expression  of  Iter  fea'.urei 
Was  more  thoughtful  than  before ^ 

On  his  own  principles  Wordsworth  should  have  admired 

this  unaffected  statement;  but  Wordsworth  rarely  praised 

his  contemporaries,  and  said  that  "  Guy  Mannering  "  was  a 

respectable  effort  in  the  style  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe.     Nor  did 

he  even  extol,  though  it  is  more  in  his  own  line, 

"Of  what  is  the  old  man  thinking, 
As  he  leans  on  his  oaken  staff?" 

My  own  favourite  among  Mr.  Bayly's  effusions  is  not  a 
sentimental  ode,  but  the  following  gush  of  true  natural 
feeling : — 

w.  L.-I.  A 


50  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

**  Oh,  give  me  new  faces,  new  faces,  new  faces, 

I've  seen  those  around  me  a  fortnight  and  more. 
Some  people  grow  weary  of  things  or  of  places, 

But  persons  to  me  are  a  much  greater  bore. 
I  care  not  for  features,  I'm  sure  to  discover 

Some  exquii-ite  trait  in  the  first  that  you  send. 
My  fondness  falls  off  when  the  novelty's  over ; 

I  want  a  new  face  for  an  intimate  friend." 

This  is  perfectly  candid  ;  we  should  all  prefer  a  new  faca, 
if  pretty,  every  fortnight : 

"  Come,  I  pray  you,  and  tell  me  this, 

All  good  fellows  whose  beards  are  grey, 
Did  not  the  fairest  of  the  fair 
Common  grow  and  wearisome  ere 
Ever  a  month  had  passed  away  ?  " 

For  once  Mr.  Bayly  uttered  in  his  "  New  Faces  **  a  senti- 
ment not  usually  expressed,  but  universally  felt ;  and  now 
he  suffers,  as  a  poet,  because  he  is  no  longer  a  new  face, 
because  we  have  welcomed  his  juniors.  To  Bayly  we  shall 
not  return  ;  but  he  has  one  rare  merit, — he  is  always 
perfectly  plain-spoken  and  intelligible. 

"Farewell  to  my  Kayly,  farewell  to  the  singer 
Whose  tender  effusions  my  aunts  used  to  sing  ; 
Farewell,  for  the  fame  of  the  bard  does  not  linger, 

My  favourite  minstrel's  no  longer  the  thing. 
But  though  on  his  temples  has  faded  the  laurel, 

Though  broken  the  lute,  and  though  veiled  is  the  crest, 
My  Bayly,  at  worst,  is  uncommonly  moral, 

Which  is  more  than  some  new  poets  are,  at  their  best." 

Farewell  to  our  Bayly,  about  whose  songs  we  may  say, 
with  Mr.  Thackeray  in  "  Vanity  Fair,"  that  "  they  contain 
numberless  good-natured,  simple  appeals  to  the  affections." 
We  are  no  longer  affectionate,  good-natured,  simple.  We 
are  cleverer  than  Bayly's  audiences ;  but  are  we  better 
fellows  ? 


THEODORE    DE   BANVILLE. 

THERE  are  literary  reputations  in  France  and  England 
which  seem,  like  the  fairies,  to  be  unable  to  cross 
running  water.  Dean  Swift,  according  to  M.  Paul  de 
Saint-Victor,  is  a  great  man  at  Dover,  a  pigmy  at  Calais — 
"  Son  talent,  qui  enthousiasme  I'Angleterre,  n'inspire  ailleurs 
qu'un  morne  etonnement."  M.  Paul  De  Saint- Victor  was  a 
fair  example  of  the  French  critic,  and  what  he  says  about 
Swift  was  possibly  true, — for  him.  There  is  not  much  re- 
semblance between  the  Dean  and  M.  Theodore  de  Banville, 
except  that  the  latter  too  is  a  poet  who  has  little  honour  out 
of  his  own  country.  He  is  a  charming  singer  at  Calais ; 
at  Dover  he  inspires  un  morne  etonnement  (a  bleak 
perplexity).  One  has  never  seen  an  English  attempt  to 
describe  or  estimate  his  genius.  His  unpopularity  in 
England  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  the  London  Library, 
that  respectable  institution,  does  not,  or  did  not,  possess 
a  single  copy  of  any  one  of  his  books.  He  is  but  feebly 
represented  even  in  the  collection  of  the  British  Museum. 
It  is  not  hard  to  account  for  our  indifference  to  M.  De 
Banville.  He  is  a  poet  not  only  intensely  French,  but 
intensely  Parisian.  He  is  careful  of  form,  rather  than 
abundant  m  manner.  He  has  no  story  to  tell,  and  his 
sketches  in  prose,  his  attempts  at  criticism,  are  not  very 


52  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

weighty  or  instructive.  With  all  his  limitations,  however, 
he  represents,  in  company  with  M.  Leconte  de  Lisle,  the 
second  of  the  three  generations  of  poets  over  whom  Victor 
Hugo  reigned. 

M.  De  Banville  has  been  called,  by  people  who  do  not 
like,  and  who  apparently  have  not  read  him,  un  saltimbanqut 
litteraire  (a  literary  rope-dancer).  Other  criiics,  who  do  like 
him,  but  who  have  limited  their  study  to  a  certain  portion 
of  his  books,  compare  him  to  a  worker  in  gold,  who  care- 
fully chases  or  embosses  dainty  processions  of  fauns  and 
maenads.  He  is,  in  point  of  fact,  something  more  estimable 
than  a  literary  rope-dancer,  something  more  serious  than  a 
working  jeweller  in  rhymes.  He  calls  himself  un  raffine, 
but  he  is  not,  like  many  persons  who  are  proud  of  that  title, 
un  indifferent  in  matters  of  human  fortune.  His  earlier 
poems,  of  course,  are  much  concerned  with  the  matter  of 
most  early  poems — with  Lydia  and  -Cynthia  and  their  light 
loves.  The  verses  of  his  second  period  often  deal  with  the 
most  evanescent  subjects,  and  they  now  retain  but  a  slight 
petulance  and  sparkle,  as  of  champagne  that  has  been  too 
long  drawn.  In  a  prefatory  plea  for  M.  De  Banville's 
poetry  one  may  add  that  he  "has  loved  our  people," 
and  that  no  poet,  no  critic,  has  honoured  Shakespeare 
with  brighter  words  of  praise. 

Theodore  de  Banville  was  born  at  Moulin,  on  March  14th, 
1823,  and  he  is  therefore  three  years  younger  than  the  dic- 
tionaries of  biography  would  make  the  world  believe.  He 
is  the  son  of  a  naval  officer,  and,  according  to  M.  Charles 
Baudelaire,  a  descendant  of  the  Crusaders.  He  came  much 
too  late  into  the  world  to  distinguish  himself  in  the  noisy 
exploits  of  1830,  and  the  chief  event  of  his  youth  was  the 


THEODORE  DE  BANVILLE.  53 

publication  of  "  Les  Cariatides  "  in  1842.  This  first  volume 
contained  a  selection  from  the  countless  verses  which  the 
poet  produced  between  his  sixteenth  and  his  nineteenth 
year.  Whatever  other  merits  the  songs  of  minors  may 
possess,  they  have  seldom  that  of  permitting  themselves  to 
be  read.  "  Les  Cariatides "  are  exceptional  here.  They 
are,  above  all  things,  readable.  "  On  peut  les  lire  \  peu  de 
frais,"  M.  De  Banville  says  himself.  He  admits  that  his 
lighter  works,  the  poems  called  (in  England)  vers  de  socieie, 
are  a  sort  of  intellectual  cigarette.  M.  Emile  de  Girardin 
said,  in  the  later  days  of  the  Empire,  that  there  were  too 
many  cigarettes  in  the  air.  Their  stale  perfume  clings  to 
the  literature  of  that  time,  as  the  odour  of  pastilles  yet 
hangs  about  the  verse  of  Dorat,  the  designs  of  Eisen,  the 
work  of  the  Pompadour  period.  There  is  more  than  smoke 
in  M.  De  Banville's  ruling  inspiration,  his  lifelong  devotion 
to  letters  and  to  great  men  of  letters — Shakespeare,  Moliere, 
Homer,  Victor  Hugo.  These  are  his  gods  ;  the  memory  of 
them  is  his  muse.  His  enthusiasm  is  worthy  of  one  who, 
though  born  too  late  to  see  and  know  the  noble  wildness  of 
1830,  yet  lives  on  the  recollections,  and  is  strengthened  by 
the  example,  of  that  revival  of  letters.  Whatever  one  may 
say  of  the  renouveau,  of  romanticism,  with  its  affectations, 
the  young  men  of  1830  were  sincere  in  their  devotion  to 
liberty,  to  poetry,  to  knowledge.  One  can  hardly  find  a 
more  brilliant  and  touching  belief  in  these  great  causes 
than  that  of  Edgar  Quinet,  as  displayed  in  th."*  letters  of  his 
youth.     De  Banville  fell  on  more  evil  times. 

When  "  Les  Cariatides  "  was  published  poets  had  begun 
to  keep  an  eye  on  the  Bourse,  and  artists  dabbled  in 
finance.    The  new  volume  of  song  in  the  sordid  age  was 


54  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

a  November  primrose,  and  not  unlike  the  flower  of  Spring. 
There  was  a  singular  freshness  and  hopefulness  in  the 
verse,  a  wonderful  "  certitude  dans  I'expression  lyrique,'* 
as  Sainte-Beuve  said.  The  mastery  of  musical  speech  and 
of  various  forms  of  song  was  already  to  be  recognised  as 
the  basis  and  the  note  of  the  talent  of  De  Banville.  He 
had  style,  without  which  a  man  may  write  very  nice  verses 
about  heaven  and  hell  and  other  matters,  and  may  please 
thousands  of  excellent  people,  but  will  write  poetry — never. 
Comparing  De  Banville's  boy's  work  with  the  boy's  work  of 
Mr.  Tennyson,  one  observes  in  each — in  "  Les  Cariatides  " 
as  in  "  The  Hesperides " — the  timbre  of  a  new  voice. 
Poetry  so  fresh  seems  to  make  us  aware  of  some  want 
which  we  had  hardly  recognised,  but  now  are  sensible  of, 
at  the  moment  we  find  it  satisfied. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  this  gratifying  and 
welcome  strangeness,  this  lyric  originality,  is  nearly  all 
that  M.  De  Banville  has  in  common  with  the  English  poet 
whose  two  priceless  volumes  were  published  in  the  same 
year  as  "  Les  Cariatides."  The  melody  of  Mr.  Tennyson's 
lines,  the  cloudy  palaces  of  his  imagination,  rose 
"As  I  lion,  like  a  mist  rose  into  towers," 

when  Apollo  sang.  The  architecture  was  floating  at  first, 
and  confused;  while  the  little  theatre  of  M.  De  Banville's 
poetry,  where  he  sat  piping  to  a  dance  of  nixies,  was 
brilliantly  lit  and  elegant  with  fresh  paint  and  gilding. 
"The  Cariatides"  support  the  pediment  and  roof  of  a 
theatre  or  temple  in  the  Graeco-French  style.  The  poet 
proposed  to  himself 

"  A  cote  de  Venus  et  du  fils  de  Latone 
Peindre  la  fee  et  la  peri." 


THEODORE  DE  BANVILLE.  55 

The  longest  poem  in  the  book,  and  the  most  serious, 
"  La  Voie  Lactde,"  reminds  one  of  the  "  Palace  of  Art," 
written  before  the  after-thought,  before  the  "  white-eyed 
corpses  "  were  found  lurking  in  corners.  Beginning  with 
Homer,  *'  the  Ionian  father  of  the  rest," — 

"  Ce  dieu,  pere  des  dieux  qu'adore  lonie,"— 

the  poet  glorifies  all  the  chief  names  of  song.  There  is 
a  long  procession  of  illustrious  shadows  before  Shakespeare 
comes — Shakespeare,  whose  genius  includes  them  all. 

"  Toute  creation  a  laquelle  on  aspire, 
Tout  reve,  toute  chose,  emanent  de  Shakespeare." 

His  mind  has  lent  colour  to  the  flowers  and  the  sky,  to 

"  La  fleur  qui  brode  un  point  sur  les  manteau  des  plaines, 
Les  nenuphars  penches,  et  les  pales  roseaux 
Qui  disent  leur  chant  sombre  au  murmure  des  eaux." 

One  recognises  more  sincerity  in  this  hymn  to  all  poets, 
from  Orpheus  to  Heine,  than  in  "  Les  Baisers  de  Pierre  " — 
a  clever  imitation  of  De  Musset's  stories  in  verse.  Love 
of  art  and  of  the  masters  of  art,  a  passion  for  the  figures  of 
old  mythology,  which  had  returned  again  after  their  exile 
in  1830,  gaiety,  and  a  revival  of  the  dexterity  of  Villon  and 
Marot, — these  things  are  the  characteristics  of  M.  De 
Banville's  genius,  and  all  these  were  displayed  in  "Les 
Cariatides."  Already,  too,  his  preoccupation  with  the 
lighter  and  more  fantastic  sort  of  theatrical  amusements 
shows  itself  in  lines  like  these : 

"  De  son  lit  il  baldaquin 

Le  soleil  de  son  beau  globe 
Avail  I'air  d'un  arlequin 
Etalant  sa  garde-robe ; 


56  ESSAYS  IN  UTTLE. 

**  Et  sa  soeur  au  front  changeant 
Mademoiselle  la  Lune 
Avec  ses  grands  yeux  d'argent 
Regardait  la  terre  brune." 

The  verse  about  "  the  sun  in  bed,"  unconsciously  Milton ic, 
is  in  a  vein  of  bad  taste  which  has  always  had  seductions 
for  M.  De  Banville.  He  mars  a  fine  later  poem  on 
Roncevaux  and  Roland  by  a  similar  absurdity.  The 
angel  Michael  is  made  to  stride  down  the  steps  of  heaven 
four  at  a  time,  and  M.  De  Banville  fancies  that  this  sort  of 
thing  is  like  the  simplicity  of  the  ages  of  faith. 

In  "  Les  Cariatides,"  especially  in  the  poems  styled  "  En 
Habit  Zinzolin,"  M.  De  Banville  revived  old  measures — the 
rondeau  and  the  "poor  little  triolet."  These  are  forms 
of  verse  which  it  is  easy  to  write  badly,  and  hard  indeed 
to  write  well.  They  have  knocked  at  the  door  of  the 
English  muse's  garden — a  runaway  knock.  In  "  Les  Caria- 
tides" they  took  a  subordinate  place,  and  played  their 
pranks  in  the  shadow  of  the  grave  figures  of  mythology, 
or  at  the  close  of  the  procession  of  Dionysus  and  his 
Maenads.  De  Banville  often  recalls  Keats  in  his  choice  of 
classical  themes.  "  Les  Exiles,"  a  poem  of  his  maturity,  is  a 
French  "Hyperion."  "Le  Triomphe  de  Bacchus"  reminds 
one  of  the  song  of  the  Bassarids  in  "  Endymion  " — 
"  So  many,  and  so  many,  and  so  gay." 

There  is  a  pretty  touch   of  the  pedant  (who  exists,  says 

M.  De  Banville,  in  the  heart  of  the  poet)  in  this  verse  : 

"  II  reve  a  Cama,  I'amour  aux  cinq  fleches  fleuries, 

Qui,  lorsque  soupire  au  milieu  des  roses  prairies 

La  douce  Vasanta,  parmi  les  bosquets  de  santal, 

Envoie  aux  cinq  sens  les  fleches  du  carquois  fatal." 

The  Bacchus  of  Titian  has  none  of  this  Oriental  languor, 


THEODORE  DE  BANVILLE.  57 

no  memories  of  perfumed  places  where  "the  throne  of 
Indian  Cama  slowly  sails.*  One  cannot  help  admiring  the 
fancy  which  saw  the  conquering  god  still  steeped  in  Asiatic 
ease,  still  unawakened  to  more  vigorous  passion  by  the  fresh 
wind  blowing  from  Thrace.  Of  all  the  Olympians,  Diana 
has  been  most  often  hymned  by  M.  De  Banville  :  his 
imagination  is  haunted  by  the  figure  of  the  goddess.  Now 
she  is  manifest  in  her  Hellenic  aspect,  as  Homer  beheld 
her,  "taking  her  pastime  in  the  chase  of  boars  and  swift 
deer ;  and  with  her  the  wild  wood-nymphs  are  sporting, 
the  daughters  of  Zeus ;  and  Leto  is  glad  at  heart,  for  her 
child  towers  over  them  all,  and  is  easy  to  be  known  where 
all  are  fair  "  (Odyssey,  vi.).  Again,  Artemis  appears  more 
thoughtful,  as  in  the  sculpture  of  Jean  Goujon,  touched  with 
the  sadness  of  moonlight.  Yet  again,  she  is  the  weary 
and  exiled  spirit  that  haunts  the  forest  of  Fontainebleau, 
and  is  a  stranger  among  the  woodland  folk,  the  fades  and 
nixies.  To  this  goddess,  "being  triple  in  her  divided 
deity,"  M.  De  Banville  has  written  his  hymn  in  the  char- 
acteristic form  of  the  old  French  ballade.  The  translator 
may  borrow  Chaucer's  apology — 

"  And  eke  to  me  it  is  a  grete  penaunce, 
Syth  rhyme  in  English  hath  such  scarsete 
To  folowe,  word  by  word,  the  curiosite 
0{  BanvilU,  flower  of  them  that  make  in  France." 

"BALLADE  SUR  LES  HOTES  MYST^RIEUX  DE  LA 
FORET. 

"  Still  sing  the  mocking  fairies,  as  of  old, 

Beneath  the  shade  of  thorn  and  holly  tree  ; 
The  west  wind  breathes  upon  them  pure  and  cold. 
And  still  wolves  dread  Diana  roving  free, 
In  secret  woodland  with  her  company. 


58  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Tis  thought  the  peasants'  hovels  know  her  rite 
When  now  the  wolds  are  bathed  in  silver  light, 
And  first  the  moonrise  breaks  the  dusky  grey, 
Then  down  the  dells,  with  blown  soft  hair  and  bright, 
And  through  the  dim  wood  Dian  thrids  her  way. 

•*  With  water-weeds  twined  in  their  locks  of  gold 
The  strange  cold  forest-fairies  dance  in  glee; 
Sylphs  over-timorous  and  over-bold 

Haunt  the  dark  hollows  where  the  dwarf  may  be, 
The  wild  red  dwarf,  the  nixies'  enemy  ; 
Then,  'mid  their  mirth,  and  laughter,  and  affright, 
The  sudden  goddess  enters,  tall  and  white. 
With  one  long  sigh  for  summers  passed  away  ; 
The  swift  feet  tear  the  ivy  nets  outright, 

And  through  the  dim  wood  Dian  thrids  her  way. 

**  She  gleans  her  sylvan  trophies  ;  down  the  wold 

She  hears  the  sobbing  of  the  stags  that  flee, 
Mixed  with  the  music  of  the  hunting  rolled, 

But  her  delight  is  all  in  archery, 
And  nought  of  ruth  and  pity  wotteth  she 

More  than  the  hounds  that  follow  on  the  flight; 
The  tall  nymph  draws  a  golden  bow  of  might, 

And  thick  she  rains  the  gentle  shafts  that  slay, 
She  tosses  loose  her  locks  upon  the  night, 

And  Dian  through  the  dim  wood  thrids  her  way. 

Envoi. 

**  Prince,  let  us  leave  the  din,  the  dust,  the  spite. 
The  gloom  and  glare  of  towns,  the  plague,  the  blight ; 

Amid  the  forest  leaves  and  fountain  spray 
There  is  the  mystic  home  of  our  delight. 
And  through  the  dim  wood  Dian  thrids  her  way." 

The  piece  is  characteristic  of  M.  De  Banville's  genius. 
Through  his  throng  of  operatic  nixies  and  sylphs  of  the 
ballet  the  cold  Muse  sometimes  passes,  strange,  but  not 
unfriendly.      He,   for  his   part,   has    never  degraded  the 


THJ^ODORE  DE  BANVILLE.  59 

beautiful  forms  of  old  religion  to  make  the  laughing-stock 
of  fools.  His  little  play,  Diane  au  Bois,  has  grace,  and 
gravity,  and  tenderness  like  the  tenderness  of  Keats,  for 
the  failings  of  immortals.  "  The  gods  are  jealous  exceed- 
ingly if  any  goddess  takes  a  mortal  man  to  her  paramour, 
as  Demeter  chose  lasion."  The  least  that  mortal  poets  can 
do  is  to  show  the  Olympians  an  example  of  toleration. 

"  Les  Cariatides  "  have  delayed  us  too  long.  They  are 
wonderfully  varied,  vigorous,  and  rich,  and  full  of  promise 
in  many  ways.  The  promise  has  hardly  been  kept.  There 
is  more  seriousness  in  "Les  Stalactites"  (1846),  it  is  true, 
but  then  there  is  less  daring.  There  is  one  morsel  that 
must  be  quoted, — a  fragment  fashioned  on  the  air  and  the 
simple  words  that  used  to  waken  the  musings  of  George 
Sand  when  she  was  a  child,  dancing  with  the  peasant 
children : 

*'  Nous  n'irons  plus  au  bois  :  les  lauriers  sont  coupes, 

Les  amours  des  bassins,  les  naiades  en  groupe 
Voient  reluire  au  soleil,  en  cristaux  decoupes 

Les  flots  silencieux  qui  coulaient  de  leur  coupe, 
Les  lauriers  sont  coupes  et  le  cerf  aux  abois 

Tressaille  au  son  du  cor  :  nous  n'irons  plus  au  bois  I 
Ou  des  tnfants  joueurs  riait  la  foUe  troupe 

Parmi  les  lys  d'argent  aux  pleurs  du  ciel  trempes. 
Voici  Iherbe  qu'on  fauche  et  les  lauriers  qu'on  coupe ; 

Nous  n'irons  plus  au  bois  ;  les  lauriers  sont  coupes." 

In  these  days  Banville,  like  Gerard  de  Nerval  in  earlier 
times,  RONSARDiSED.  The  poem  'A  la  Font  Georges,'  full 
of  the  memoiries  of  childhood,  sweet  and  rich  with  the 
air  and  the  hour  of  sunset,  is  written  in  a  favourite  metre 
of  Ronsard's.  Thus  Ronsard  says  in  his  lyrical  version  of 
five  famous  lines  of  Homer — 


6o  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

**  La  gresle  ni  la  neige 

N'ont  tels  lieux  pour  leur  siege 
"Ne  la  foudre  oncques  la 
Ne  devala." 

(The  snow,  and  wind,  and  hail 
May  never  there  prevail. 

Nor  thunderbolt  doth  Hall, 
Nor  rain  at  all.) 

De  Banville  chose  this  metre,  rapid  yet  melancholy,  with 
its  sad  emphatic  cadence  in  the  fourth  line,  as  the  vehicle 
of  his  childish  memories  : 

*•  O  champs  pleins  de  silence, 
Ou  mon  heureuse  enfance 
Avait  des  jours  encor 
Tout  files  d'or  !  " 

O  ma  vieille  Font  Georges, 
Vers  qui  les  rouges-gorges 

Et  le  doux  rossignol 

Prenaient  leur  vol ! 

So  this  poem  of  the  fountain  of  youth  begins,  "  tout  fild  d'or," 
and  closes  when  the  dusk  is  washed  with  silver — 

"A  I'heure  oCi  sous  leurs  voiles 
Les  tremblantes  etoiles 

Brodent  le  ciel  changeant 
De  fleurs  d'argent." 

The  "Stalactites"  might  detain  one  long,  but  we  must 
pass  on  after  noticing  an  unnamed  poem  which  is  the  French 
counterpart  of  Keats'  "  Ode  to  a  Greek  Urn  " : 

"  Qu'autour  du  vase  pur,  trop  beau  pour  la  Bacchante, 
La  verveine,  melee  a  des  feuilles  d'acanthe, 

Fleurisse,  et  que  plus  bas  des  vierges  lentement 
S'avancent  deux  a  deux,  d'un  pas  sur  et  charmant, 

Les  bras  pendants  le  long  de  leurs  tuniques  droites 
Et  les  cheveux  tresses  sur  leurs  tetes  etroites." 


THEODORE  DE  BANVILLE.  6i 

In  the  same  volume  of  the  definite  series  of  poems  come 
"  Les  Odelettes,"  charming  lyrics,  one  of  which,  addressed 
to  Thdophile  Gautier,  was  answered  in  the  well-known 
verses  called  "  L'Art."  If  there  had  been  any  rivalry  between 
the  writers,  M.  De  Banville  would  hardly  have  cared  to  print 
Gautier's  "Odelette"  beside  his  own.  The  tone  of  it  is 
infinitely  more  manly :  one  seems  to  hear  a  deep,  decisive 
voice  replying  to  tones  far  less  sweet  and  serious.  M,  De 
Banville  revenged  himself  nobly  in  later  verses  addressed 
to  Gautier,  verses  which  criticise  the  genius  of  that  workman 
better,  we  think,  than  anything  else  that  has  been  written 
of  him  in  prose  or  rhyme. 

The  less  serious  poems  of  De  Banville  are,  perhaps,  the 
better  known  in  this  country.  His  feats  of  graceful  metrical 
gymnastics  have  been  admired  by  every  one  who  cares  for 
skill  pure  and  simple.  "  Les  Odes  Funambulesques  "  and 
"  Les  Occidentales  "  are  like  ornamental  skating.  The  author 
moves  in  many  circles  and  cuts  a  hundred  fantastic  figures 
with  a  perfect  ease  and  smoothness.  At  the  same  time, 
naturally,  he  does  not  advance  nor  carry  his  readers  with 
him  in  any  direction.  "Les  Odes  Funambulesques"  were 
at  first  unsigned.  They  appeared  in  journals  and  magazines, 
and,  as  M.  de  Banville  applied  the  utmost  lyrical  skill  to 
light  topics  of  the  moment,  they  were  the  most  popular  of 
"Articles  de  Paris."  One  must  admit  that  they  bore  the 
English  reader,  and  by  this  time  long  scholia  are  necessary 
for  the  enlightenment  even  of  the  Parisian  student.  The 
verses  are,  perhaps,  the  "  bird-chorus  "  of  French  life,  but 
they  have  not  the  permanent  truth  and  delightfulness  of  the 
"  bird-chorus  "  in  Aristophanes.  One  has  easily  too  much 
of  the  Carnival,  the  masked  ball,  the  debardeurs,  and  the 


63  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Pierrots.  The  people  at  whom  M.  De  Banville  laughed  are 
dead  and  forgotten.  There  was  a  certain  M.  Paul  Limayrac 
of  those  days,  who  barked  at  the  heels  of  Balzac,  and  othei 
great  men,  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes.  In  his 
honour  De  Banville  wrote  a  song  which  parodied  all  popular 
aspirations  to  be  a  flower.  M.  Limayrac  was  supposed  to 
have  become  a  blossom  : 

"  Sur  les  coteaux  et  dans  les  landes 
Vo'tigeant  comme  un  oiseleur 
Buloz  en  ferait  des  guirlandes 
Si  Limayrac  devenait  fleur  I" 

There  is  more  of  high  spirits  than  of  wit  in  the  lyric,  which 
became  as  popular  as  our  modern  invocation  of  Jingo,  the 
god  of  battles.  It  chanced  one  night  that  M.  Limayrac 
appeared  at  a  masked  ball  in  the  opera-house.  He  was 
recognised  by  some  one  in  the  crowd.  The  turbulent 
waltz  stood  still,  the  music  was  silent,  and  the  dancers 
of  every  hue  howled  at  the  critic 

"  Si  Paul  Limayrac  devenait  fleur  ! " 

Fancy  a  British  reviewer,  known  as  such  to  the  British 
public,  and  imagine  that  public  taking  a  lively  interest  in 
the  feuds  of  men  of  letters  !  Paris,  to  be  sure,  was  more  or 
less  of  a  university  town  thirty  years  ago,  and  the  students 
were  certain  to  be  largely  represented  at  the  ball. 

The  "  Odes  Funambulesques  "  contain  many  examples  of 
M.  De  Banville's  skill  in  reviving  old  forms  of  verse — 
triolets^  rondeaux,  chants  royaux,  and  ballades.  Most  of 
these  were  composed  for  the  special  annoyance  of  M.  Buloz, 
M.  Limayrac,  and  a  M.  Jacquot  who  called  himself  De 
Mirecourt.  The  rondeaux  are  full  of  puns  in  the  refrain : 
"  Houssaye  ou  c'est ;  lyre,  I'ire,  lire,"  and  so  on,  not  very 


THEODORE  DE  BANVILLE.  63 

exhilarating.  The  ^anfoum,  where  lines  recur.alternately,  was 
borrowed  from  the  distant  Malay:  but  primitiye />an/oums,  in 
which  the  last  two  lines  of  each  stanza  are  the  first  two  of 
the  next,  occur  in  old  French  folk-song.  The  popular  trick  of 
repetition,  affording  a  rest  to  the  memory  of  the  singer,  is 
perhaps  the  origin  of  all  refrains.  De  Banville's  later  satires 
are  directed  against  permanent  objects  of  human  indignation 
— the  little  French  debauchee,  the  hypocritical  friend  of 
reaction,  the  bloodthirsty  chauviniste.  Tired  of  the  flashy 
luxury  of  the  Empire,  his  memory  goes  back  to  his  youth — 

'•  Lorsque  la  l^vre  de  I'aurore 
Baisait  nos  yeux  souleves, 
Et  que  nous  n'etions  pas  encore 
La  France  des  petits  creves." 

The  poem  "  Et  Tartufe  "  prolongs  the  note  of  a  satire 
always  popular  in  France — the  satire  of  Scarron,  Moli^re, 
La  Bruyfere,  against  the  clerical  curse  of  the  nation.  The 
Roman  Question  was  Tartufe's  stronghold  at  the  moment. 
"  French  interests  "  demanded  that  Italy  should  be  headless. 

"  Et  Tartufe  ?  II  nous  dit  entre  deux  oremus 

Que  pour  tout  bon  Francois  I'enipire  est  a  Rome, 
Et  qu'ayant  pour  aieux  Romulus  et  Remus 
Nous  tetterons  la  louve  a  jamais — le  pauvre  homme." 

The  new  Tartufe  worships  St.  Chassepot,  who  once,  it 
will  not  be  forgotten,  "  wrought  miracles  " ;  but  he  has  his 
doubts  as  to  the  morality  of  explosive  bullets.  The  nymph 
of  modern  warfare  is  addressed  as  she  hovers  above  the 
Geneva  Convention, — 

"  Quoi,  nymphe  du  canon  ray^, 

Tu  montres  ces  pudeurs  risibles 
Et  ce  petit  air  eflraye 

Devant  Ics  balles  exploisiblcs  ?  " 


64  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

De  Banville  was  for  long  alinost  alone  among  poets  in 

his  freedom  from   Weltschmerz,  from  regret  and  desire  for 

worlds   lost   or    impossible.      In   the    later  and    stupider 

corruption  of  the  Empire,  sadness  and  anger  began  to  vex 

even  his  careless  muse.    She  had  piped  in  her  time  to  much 

wild  dancing,  but  could  not  sing  to  a  waltz  of  mushroom 

speculators  and  decorated   capitalists.      "  Le  Sang   de  la 

Coupe"   contains  a  very  powerful  poem,  "The  Curse   of 

Venus,"  pronounced  on  Paris,  the  city  of  pleasure,  which 

has  become  the  city  of  greed.     This  verse  is  appropriate 

to  our  own  commercial  enterprise : 

**  Vends  les  bois  ou  dormaient  Viviane  et  Merlin  ! 
L'Aigle  de  mont  n'est  fait  que  pour  ta  gibeciere; 
La  neige  vierge  est  la  pour  fournir  ta  glaciere  ; 
Le  torrent  qui  bondit  sur  le  roc  sybillin, 

Et  vole,  diamant,  neige,  ecume  et  poussiere, 

N'est  plus  bon  qua  tourner  tes  meules  de  moulin  I** 

In  the  burning  indignation  of  this  poem,  M.  De  Banville 

reaches  his  highest  mark  of  attainment.     "  Les  Exilds  "  is 

scarcely   less   impressive.      The   outcast    gods   of  Hellas, 

wandering  in  a  forest  of  ancient  Gaul,  remind  one  at  once 

of  the  fallen  deities  of  Heine,  the  decrepit  Olympians  of 

Bruno,  and  the  large   utterance   of  Keats's    "  Hyperion." 

Among  great  exiles,  Victor  Hugo,  "  le  pere  Ik-bas  dans  Pile," 

is  not  forgotten  : 

"  Et  toi  qui  I'accueillis,  sol  libre  et  verdoyant, 

Qui  prodigues  les  fleurs  sur  tes  coteaux  fertiles, 
Et  qui  sembles  sourire  a  I'ocean  bruyant, 
Sois  benie,  ile  verte,  entre  toutes  les  iles." 

The  hoarsest  note  of  M.  De  Banville's  lyre  is  that 
discordant  one  struck  in  the  "  Idylles  Prussiennes."  One 
would  not  linger  over  poetry  or  prose  composed  during  the 


THEODORE  DE  BANVILLE.  65 

siege,  in  hours  of  shame  and  impotent  scorn.  The  poet 
sings  how  the  sword,  the  flashing  Durehdal,  is  rusted  and 
broken,  how  victory  is  to  him — 

"...  qui  se  cela 
Dans  un  trou,  sous  la  terre  noire." 

He  can  spare  a  tender  lyric  to  the  memory  of  a  Prussian 
officer,  a  lad  of  eighteen,  shot  dead  through  a  volume  of 
Pindar  which  he  carried  in  his  tunic. 

It  is  impossible  to  leave  the  poet  of  gaiety  and  good- 
humour  in  the  mood  of  the  prisoner  in  besieged  Paris. 
His  "Trente  Six  Ballades  Joyeuses"  make  a  far  more 
pleasant  subject  for  a  last  word.  There  is  scarcely  a 
more  delightful  little  volume  in  the  French  language  than 
this  collection  of  verses  in  the  most  difficult  of  forms, 
which  pour  forth,  with  absolute  ease  and  fluency,  notes  of 
mirth,  banter,  joy  in  the  spring,  in  letters,  art,  and  good- 
fellowship. 

**  L'oiselet  retourne  aux  forets  ; 
Je  suis  un  poete  lyrique," — 

he  cries,  with  a  note  like  a  bird's  song.  Among  the  thirty- 
six  every  one  will  have  his  favourites.  We  venture  to 
translate  the  "  Ballad  de  Banville  " : 

'•AUX  ENFANTS  PERDUS. 

"I  know  Cylhera  long  is  desolaie  ; 

I  know  the  winds  have  stripped  the  garden  green. 
Alas,  my  friends  !  beneath  the  tierce  sun's  weight 

A  barren  reef  lies  where  Love's  flowers  have  been, 

Nor  ever  lover  on  that  coast  is  seen  1 
So  be  it,  for  we  seek  a  fabled  shore, 
To  lull  our  vague  desires  with  mystic  lore, 

To  wander  where  Loves  labyrinths  lieguile ; 
There  let  us  land,  there  dream  for  evermore : 

'  It  may  be  we  sliall  touch  the  happy  isle.' 
iV.  L.-I.  t 


66  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

•'  The  sea  may  be  our  sepulchre.     If  Fate, 

If  tempests  wreak  their  wrath  on  us,  serene 
We  watch  the  bolt  of  Heaven,  and  scorn  the  hate 

Of  angry  gods  that  smite  us  in  their  spleen. 

Perchance  the  jealous  mists  are  but  the  screen 
That  veils  the  fairy  coast  we  would  explore. 
Come,  though  the  sea  be  vexed,  and  breakers  roar. 

Come,  for  the  breath  of  this  old  world  is  vile, 
Haste  we,  and  toil,  and  faint  not  at  the  oar ; 

'  It  may  be  we  shall  touch  the  happy  isle.' 

"Grey  serpents  trail  in  temples  desecrate 

Where  Cypris  smiled,  the  golden  maid,  the  queen. 

And  ruined  is  the  palace  of  our  state  ; 

But  happy  loves  flit  round  the  mast,  and  keen 
The  shrill  wind  sings  the  silken  cords  between. 

Heroes  are  we,  with  wearied  hearts  and  sore, 

Whose  flower  is  faded  and  whose  locks  are  hoar. 
Haste,  ye  light  skiffs,  where  myrtle  thickets  smile  j 

Love's  panthers  sleep  'mid  roses,  as  of  yore  : 
'  It  may  be  we  shall  touch  the  happy  isle.' 

Envoi. 

*'  Sad  eyes  !  the  blue  sea  laughs,  as  heretofore. 
Ah,  singing  birds,  your  happy  music  pour; 
Ah,  poets,  leave  the  sordid  earth  awhile  ; 
Flit  to  these  ancient  gods  we  still  adore  : 
'  It  may  be  we  shall  touch  the  happy  isle.'  ** 

Alas  !  the  mists  that  veil  the  shore  of  our  Cythera  are  not 
the  summer  haze  of  Watteau,  but  the  smoke  and  steam  of 
a  commercial  time. 

It  is  as  a  lyric  poet  that  we  have  studied  M.  De  Banville. 
"Je  ne  m'entends  qu'k  la  metrique,"  he  says  in  his  ballad 
on  himself;  but  he  can  write  prose  when  he  pleases. 

It  is  in  his  drama  of  Gringoire  acted  at  the  Theatre 
Frangais,  and  familiar  in  the  version  of  Messrs.  Pollock 
and  Besant,  that  M.  De  Banville's  prose  shows  to  the  best 


THEODORE  DE  BANVILLE.  67 

advantage.  Louis  XI.  is  supping  with  his  bourgeois 
friends  and  with  the  terrible  Olivier  le  Daim.  Two  beautiful 
girls  are  of  the  company,  friends  of  Pierre  Gringoire,  the 
strolling  poet  Presently  Gringoire  himself  appears.  He 
is  dying  of  hunger ;  he  does  not  recognise  the  king,  and 
he  is  promised  a  good  supper  if  he  will  recite  the  new 
satirical  "  Ballade  des  Pendus,"  which  he  has  made  at  the 
monarch's  expense.  Hunger  overcomes  his  timidity,  and, 
addressing  himself  especially  to  the  king,  he  enters  on  this 
goodly  matter : 

•*  Where  wide  the  forest  boughs  are  spread. 

Where  Flora  wakes  with  sylph  and  fay, 
Are  crowns  and  garlands  of  men  dead, 

All  golden  in  the  morning  gay ; 
Within  this  ancient  garden  grey 

Are  clusters  such  as  no  man  knows, 
Where  Moor  and  Soldan  bear  the  sway  t 

Ihis  is  King  Louis'  orchard  close  1 

•*  These  wretched  folk  wave  overhead, 

With  such  strange  thoughts  as  none  may  say  { 
A  moment  still,  then  sudden  sped, 

They  swing  in  a  ring  and  waste  away. 
The  morning  smites  them  with  her  ray  ; 

They  toss  with  every  breeze  that  blows, 
They  dance  where  fires  of  dawhing  play  i 

This  is  King  Louis'  orchard  close  I 

**  All  hanged  and  dead,  they've  summoned 

(With  Hell  to  aid,  that  hears  them  pray) 
New  legions  of  an  army  dread, 

Now  down  the  blue  sky  flames  the  day; 
The  dew  dies  off  ;  the  foul  array 

Of  obscene  ravens  gathers  and  goes, 
With  wings  that  flap  and  beaks  that  flay  t 

TTiis  is  King  Louis'  orchard  close  I 


68  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Envoi, 

•*  Prince,  where  leaves  murmur  of  the  May, 
A  tree  of  bitter  clusters  grows  ; 
The  bodies  of  men  dead  are  they  ! 
TAis  is  Kin^  Louis'  orchard  close  ! 

Poor  Gringoire  has  no  sooner  committed  himself,  than 
he  is  made  to  recognise  the  terrible  king.  He  pleads 
that,  if  he  must  join  the  ghastly  army  of  the  dead,  he 
ought,  at  least,  to  be  allowed  to  finish  his  supper.  This 
the  king  giants,  and  in  the  end,  after  Gringoire  has  won 
the  heart  of  the  heroine,  he  receives  his  life  and  a  fair 
bride  with  a  full  dowry. 

Gringoire  is  a  play  very  different  from  M.  De  Banville's 
other  dramas,  and  it  is  not  included  in  the  pretty  volume  of 
"  Comedies  "  which  closes  the  Lemerre  series  of  his  poems. 
The  poet  has  often  declared,  with  an  iteration  which  has 
been  parodied  by  M.  Richepin,  that  "  comedy  is  the  child 
of  the  ode,"  and  that  a  drama  without  the  "  lyric  "  element 
is  scarcely  a  drama  at  all.  While  comedy  retains  either  the 
choral  ode  in  its  strict  form,  or  its  representative  in  the 
shape  of  lyric  enthusiasm  {le  fyrisme),  comedy  is  complete 
and  living.  Gringoire,  to  our  mind,  has  plenty  of  lyric 
enthusiasm ;  but  M.  I>e  Banville  seems  to  be  of  a  different 
opinion.  His  republished  "  Comedies  "  are  more  remote 
from  experience  than  Gringoire,  his  characters  are  ideal 
creatures,  familiar  types  of  the  stage,  like  Scapin  and  "le 
beau  L^andre,"  or  ethereal  persons,  or  figures  of  old 
mythology,  like  Diana  in  Diane  au  JSois,  and  Deidamia 
in  the  piece  which  shows  Achilles  among  women.  M.  De 
Banville's  dramas  have  scarcely  prose  enough  in  them  to 
suit  the  modern  taste.     They  are  masques  for  the  delicate 


THEODORE  DE  BANVILLE,  69 

diversion  of  an  hour,  and  it  is  not  in  the  nature  of  things 
that  they  should  rival  the  success  of  blatant  buffooneries. 
His  earliest  pieces — Le  Feuilkton  tT Aristophane  (acted  at 
the  Odeon,  Dec.  26th,  1852),  and  Le  Cousin  du  Rot 
(Oddon,  April  4th,  1857) — were  written  in  collaboration 
with  Philoxbne  Boyer,  a  generous  but  indiscreet  patron 
of  singers. 

"  Dans  les  salons  de  Philoxene 

Nous  etions  quatre-vingt  rimeurs," 

M.  De  Banville  wrote,  parodying  the  "quatre-vingt 
ramuers "  of  Victor  Hugo.  The  memory  of  M.  Boyer's 
enthusiasm  for  poetry  and  his  amiable  hospitality  are  not 
unlikely  to  survive  both  his  compositions  and  those  in 
which  M.  De  Banville  aided  him.  The  latter  poet  began 
to  walk  alone  as  a  playwright  in  Le  Beau  Leaiidre  (Vaude- 
ville, 1856) — a  piece  with  scarcely  more  substance  than  the 
French  scenes  in  the  old  Franco-Italian  drama  possess. 
We  are  taken  into  an  impossible  world  of  gay  non-morality, 
where  a  wicked  old  bourgeois,  Orgon,  his  daughter  Colom- 
bine,  a  pretty  flirt,  and  her  lover  L^ndre,  a  light-hearted 
scamp,  bustle  through  their  little  hour.  Leandre,  who  has 
no  notion  of  being  married,  says,  *'Le  ciel  n'est  pas  plus 
pur  que  mes  intentions."  And  the  artless  Colombine  replies, 
"  Alors  marions-nous ! "  To  marry  Colombine  without  a 
dowry  forms,  as  modern  novelist  says,  "  no  part  of 
L<^andre's  profligate  scheme  of  pleasure."  There  is  a  sort 
of  treble  intrigue.  Orgon  wants  to  give  away  Colombine 
dowerless,  L^indre  to  escape  from  the  whole  transaction, 
and  Colombine  to  secure  her  dot  and  her  husband.  The 
strength  of  the  piece  is  the  brisk  action  in  the  scene  when 
Leandre   protests   that   he   can't   rob   Orgon   of   his  only 


70  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

daughter,  and  Orgon  insists  that  he  can  refuse  nothing 
except  his  ducats  to  so  charming  a  son-in-law.  The  play 
is  redeemed  from  sordidness  by  the  costumes.  Ldandre  is 
dressed  in  the  attire  of  Watteau's  "  L'Indifferent "  in  the 
Louvre,  and  wears  a  diamond-hilted  sword.  The  lady  who 
plays  the  part  of  Colombine  may  select  (delightful  privilege  !) 
the  prettiest  dress  in  Watteau's  collection. 

This  love  of  the  glitter  of  the  stage  is  very  characteristic 
of  De  Banville.  In  his  Deidamie  (Odeon,  Nov.  i8th, 
1876)  the  players  who  took  the  roles  of  Thetis,  Achilles, 
Odysseus,  Deidamia,  and  the  rest,  were  accoutred  in  semi- 
barbaric  raiment  and  armour  of  the  period  immediately 
preceding  the  Graeco-Phoenician  (about  the  eighth  century 
B.C.).  Again  we  notice  the  touch  of  pedantry  in  the  poet. 
As  for  the  play,  the  sombre  thread  in  it  is  lent  by  the 
certainty  of  Achilles'  early  death,  the  fate  which  drives  him 
from  Deidamie's  arms,  and  from  the  sea  king's  isle  to  the 
leagues  under  the  fatal  walls  of  Ilion.  Of  comic  effect  there 
is  plenty,  for  the  sisters  of  Deidamie  imitate  all  the  acts  by 
which  Achilles  is  likely  to  betray  himself — grasp  the  sword 
among  the  insidious  presents  of  Odysseus,  when  he  seizes 
the  spear,  and  drink  each  one  of  them  a  huge  beaker  of 
wine  to  the  confusion  of  the  Trojans.*  On  a  Parisian 
audience  the  imitations  of  the  tone  of  the  Odyssey  must 
have  been  thrown  away.  For  example,  here  is  a  passage 
which  is  as  near  being  Homeric  as  French  verse  can  oe. 
Deidamie  is  speaking  in  a  melancholy  mood  : 

"  Heureux  les  epoux  rois  assis  dans  leur  maison, 
Qui  voient  lianquillement  s'enfuir  chaque  saison — 

*  The  subject  has  been  much  more  gravely  treated  in  Mr.  Robert 
Bridges 's  "  Achilles  in  Scyros." 


TH&ODORE  DE   BANVILLE.  71 

L'epoux  tenant  son  sceptre,  environne  de  gloire, 
Et  1  epouse  filant  sa  quenouille  d'ivo"re  ! 
Mais  le  jeune  heros  que,  la  glaive  a  son  franc  I 
Court  dans  le  noir  combat,  les  mains  teintes  de  sang, 
Laisse  sa  femme  en  pleurs  dans  sa  haute  demeure.  " 

With  the  accustomed  pedantry,  M.  De  Banville,  in  the  scene 
of  the  banquet,  makes  the  cup-bearer  go  round  deah'ng 
out  a  Httle  wine,  with  which  libation  is  made,  and  then 
the  feast  goes  on  in  proper  Homeric  fashion.  These  over- 
wrought details  are  forgotten  in  the  parting  scenes,  where 
Deidamie  takes  what  she  knows  to  be  her  last  farewell  of 
Achilles,  and  girds  him  with  his  sword : 

"La  lame  de  lepee,  en  sa  forme  divine 
Est  pareille  a  la  feuille  austere  du  laurier!" 

Let  it  be  noted  that  each  of  M.  De  Banville's  more  serious 
plays  ends  with  the  same  scene,  with  slight  differences.  In 
Florise  (never  put  on  the  stage)  the  wandering  actress  of 
Hardy's  troupe  leaves  her  lover,  the  young  noble,  and  the 
shelter  of  his  castle,  to  follow  where  art  and  her  genius 
beckon  her.  In  Diane  au  Bois  the  goddess  "  that  leads  the 
precise  life  "  turns  her  back  on  Eros,  who  has  subdued  even 
her,  and  passes  from  the  scene  as  she  waves  her  hand  in 
sign  of  a  farewell  ineffably  mournful.  Nearer  tragedy  than 
this  M.  De  Banville  does  not  care  to  go  ;  and  if  there  is  any 
deeper  tragedy  in  scenes  of  blood  and  in  stages  strewn  wiih 
corpses,  from  that  he  abstains.  His  Florise  is  perhaps  too 
long,  perhaps  too  learned ;  and  certainly  we  are  asked  to 
believe  too  much  when  a  kind  of  etherealised  Consuelo  is 
set  before  us  as  the />rima  donna  of  old  Hardy's  troupe  : 

"  Mais  Florise  n'est  pas  une  femme.     Je  suis 
LTiarmonieuse  voix  que  berce  vos  ennuLs ; 


72  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Je  suis  la  lyre  aux  sons  divers  que  le  p'^ete 
Fait  reaonner  et  qui  sans  lui  serait  muette— 
Une  comedienne  en'^ti.     Je  ne  suis  pas 
Une  femme." 

An  actress  who  was  not  a  woman  had  little  to  do  in  the 
company  of  Scarron's  Angdlique  and  Mademoiselle  de 
I'Estoile.  Florise,  in  short,  is  somewhat  too  allegorical  and 
haughty  a  creature ;  \\  hile  Colombine  and  Nerine  (Vaudeville, 
June  1864)  are  rather  tricksy  imps  than  women  of  flesh  and 
blood.  M.  De  Banville's  stage,  on  the  whole,  is  one  of  glitter 
and  fantasy ;  yet  he  is  too  much  a  Greek  for  the  age  that 
appreciates  "  la  belle  Hdene,"  too  much  a  lyric  dramatist  to 
please  the  contemporaries  of  Sardou  ;  he  lends  too  much 
sentiment  and  dainty  refinement  to  characters  as  flimsy  as 
those  of  Oflenbach's  drama. 

Like  other  French  poets,  M.  De  Banville  has  occasionally 
deigned  to  write  fcuilleions  and  criticisms.  Not  many  of 
these  scattered  leaves  are  collected,  but  one  volume,  "  La 
Mer  de  Nice"  (Poulet-Malassis  et  De  Broise,  Paris,  1861), 
may  be  read  with  pleasure  even  by  jealous  admirers  of 
Gautier's  success  as  a  chronicler  of  the  impressions  made 
by  southern  scenery. 

To  De  Banville  (he  does  not  conceal  it)  a  journey  to  a 
place  so  far  from  Paris  as  the  Riviera  was  no  slight  labour. 
Even  from  the  roses,  the  palms,  the  siren  sea,  the  wells  of 
water  under  the  fronds  of  maiden-hair  fern,  his  mind  travels 
back  wistfully  'to  the  city  of  his  love. 

"  I  am,  I  have  always  been,  one  of  those  devotees  of  Paris 
who  visit  Greece  only  when  they  gaze  on  the  face,  so  fair 
and  so  terrible,  of  the  twice-victorious  Venus  of  the  Louvre. 
One  of  those  obstinate  adorers  of  my  town  am  I,  who  will 


THEODORE  DE  BANVILLE.  73 

never  see  Italy,  save  in  the  glass  that  reflects  the  tawny  hair 
of  Titian's  Violante,  or  in  that  dread  isle  of  Alcinous  where 
Lionardo  shows  you  the  mountain  peaks  that  waver  in  the 
blue  behind  the  mysterious  Monna  Lisa.  But  the  Faculty 
of  Physicians,  which  has,  I  own,  the  right  to  be  sceptical, 
does  not  believe  that  neuralgia  can  be  healed  by  the  high 
sun  which  Titian  and  Veronese  have  fixed  on  the  canvas. 
To  me  the  Faculty  prescribes  the  real  sun  of  nature  and  of 
life ;  and  here  am  I,  condemned  to  learn  in  suffering  all 
that  passes  in  the  mind  of  a  poet  of  Paris  exiled  from  that 
blessed  place  where  he  finds  the  Cyclades  and  the  islands 
blossoming,  the  vale  of  Avalon,  and  all  the  heavenly  homes 
of  the  fairies  of  experience  and  desire." 

Nice  is  Tomi  to  this  Ovid,  but  he  makes  the  best  of  it, 
and  sends  to  the  editor  of  the  Moniteiir  letters  much 
more  diverting  than  the  "Tristia."  To  tell  the  truth,  he 
never  overcomes  his  amazement  at  being  out  of  Paris 
streets,  and  in  a  glade  of  the  lower  Alps  he  loves  to  be 
reminded  of  his  dear  city  of  pleasure.  Only  under  the 
olives  of  Monaco,  those  solemn  and  ancient  trees,  he  feels 
what  surely  all  men  feel  who  walk  at  sunset  through  their 
shadow — the  memory  of  a  mysterious  twilight  of  agony  in 
an  olive  garden. 

**  Et  ceux-ci,  les  pales  oliviers,  n'est-ce  pas  de  ces  heures 
d&oldes  oil,  comme  torture  supreme,  le  Sauveur  acceptait 
en  son  dme  I'irr^parable  mis^re  du  doute,  n'est-ce  pas  alors 
qu'il  ont  appris  de  lui  k  courber  le  front  sous  le  poids 
imp^rieux  des  souvenirs  ?  " 

The  pages  which  M.  De  Kanville  consecrates  to  the  Villa 
Sardou,  where  Rachel  died,  may  disenchant,  perhaps,  some 
readers  of  Mr.   Matthew  Arnold's  sonnet.     The  scene  of 


74  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Rachel's  death  has  been  spoiled  by  **  improvements  "  in  too 
theatrical  taste.  All  these  notes,  however,  were  made 
many  years  ago ;  and  visitors  of  the  Riviera,  though  they 
will  find  the  little  book  charming  where  it  speaks  of  seas 
and  hills,  will  learn  that  France  has  greatly  changed  the 
city  which  she  has  annexed.  As  a  practical  man  and  a 
Parisian,  De  Banville  has  printed  (pp.  179-81)  a  recipe  for 
the  concoction  of  the  Marseilles  dish,  bouillabaisse,  the  mess 
that  Thackeray's  bal'ad  made  so  famous.  It  takes  genius, 
however,  to  cook  bouillabaisse',  and,  to  parody  what  De 
Banville  says  about  his  own  recipe  for  making  a  mechanical 
**  ballade,"  "  en  employment  ce  moyen,  on  est  sQr  de  faire 
une  mauvaise,  irrdmediablement  mauvaise  bouillabaisse.^^ 
The  poet  adds  the  remark  that  "  une  bouillabaisse  rdussie 
vaut  un  sonnet  sans  d^faut." 

There  remains  one  field  of  M.  De  Banville's  activity  to 
be  shortly  described.  Of  his  "  Emaux  Parisiens,"  short 
studies  of  celebrated  writers,  we  need  say  no  more  than 
that  they  are  written  in  careful  prose.  M.  De  Banville 
is  not  only  a  poet,  but  in  his  "  Petit  Trait^  de  Podsie 
Fran^aise  "  (Bibliothbque  de  I'Echo  de  la  Sorbonne,  s.d.)  a 
teacher  of  the  mechanical  part  of  poetry.  He  does  not,  of 
course,  advance  a  paradox  like  that  of  Baudelaire,  "that 
poetry  can  be  taught  in  thirty  lessons."  He  merely  in- 
structs his  pupil  in  the  material  part — the  scansion,  metres, 
and  so  on — of  French  poetry.  In  this  little  work  he  intro- 
duces these  "traditional  forms  of  verse,"  which  once 
caused  some  talk  in  England  :  the  rondel,  rondeau,  ballade, 
vilianelle,  and  chant  royal.  It  may  be  worth  while  to 
quote  his  testimony  as  to  the  merit  of  these  modes  of 
expression.      "This   cluster  of  forms  is  one  of  our    most 


THEODORE  DE  BANVILLE.  '  75 

precious  treasures,  for  each  of  them  forms  a  rhythmic  whole, 
complete  arid  perfect,  while  at  the  same  time  they  all 
possess  the  fresh  and  unconscious  grace  which  marks  the 
productions  of  primitive  times."  Now,  there  is  some  truth 
in  this  criticism ;  for  it  is  a  mark  of  man's  early  ingenuity, 
in  many  arts,  to  seek  complexity  (where  you  would  expect 
simplicity),  and  yet  to  lend  to  that  complexity  an  infantine 
naturalness.  One  can  see  this  phenomenon  in  early 
decorative  art,  and  in  early  law  and  custom,  and  even  in 
the  complicated  structure  of  primitive  languages.  Now, 
just  as  early,  and  even  savage,  races  are  our  masters  in 
the  decorative  use  of  colour  and  of  carving,  so  the  nameless 
master-singers  of  ancient  France  may  be  our  teachers  in 
decorative  poetry,  the  poetry  some  call  vers  de  socicte. 
Whether  it  is  possible  to  go  beyond  this,  and  adapt  the 
old  French  forms  to  serious  modern  poetry,  it  is  not  for 
any  one  but  time  to  decide.  In  this  matter,  as  in  greater 
affairs,  securus  jiidicat  orbis  ierrarum.  For  my  own  part 
I  scarcely  believe  that  the  revival  would  serve  the  nobler 
ends  of  English  poetry.  Now  let  us  listen  again  to  M. 
De  Banville. 

"  In  the  rondel,  as  in  the  rondeau  and  the  ballade,  all  the 
art  is  to  bring  in  the  refrain  without  effort,  naturally,  gaily, 
and  each  time  with  novel  effect  and  with  fresh  light  cast  on 
the  central  idea."  Now,  you  can  teach  no  one  to  do  that, 
and  M.  De  Banville  never  pretends  to  give  any  recipes  for 
cooking  rondels  or  ballades  worth  reading.  "  Without  poetic 
vision  all  is  mere  marquetery  and  cabinetmaker's  work: 
that  is,  so  far  as  poetry  is  concerned — nothing."  It  is 
because  he  was  a  poet,  not  a  mere  craftsman,  that  Villon 
"  was  and  remains  the  king,  the  absolute  master,  of  ballad- 


76  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

land."  About  the  rondeau,  M.  De  Banville  avers  that  it 
possesses  "  nimble  movement,  speed,  grace,  lightness  of 
touch,  and,  as  it  were,  an  ancient  fragrance  of  the  soil,  that 
must  charm  all  who  love  our  country  and  our  country's 
poetry,  in  its  every  age."  As  for  the  villaneile,  M.  De 
Banville  declares  that  it  is  the  fairest  jewel  in  the  casket  of 
the  muse  Erato ;  while  the  chant  royal  is  a  kind  of  fossil 
poem,  a  relic  of  an  age  when  kings  and  allegories -flourished. 
"  The  kings  and  the  gods  are  dead,"  like  Pan ;  or  at  least 
we  no  longer  find  them  able,  by  touch  royal  or  divine,  to 
reanimate  the  magnificent  chant  royal. 

This  is  M.  De  Banville's  apology  in  pro  lyrct,  sua,  that 
light  lyre  of  many  tones,  in  whose  jingle  the  eternal  note 
of  modern  sadness  is  heard  so  rarely.  If  he  has  a  lesson 
to  teach  English  versifiers,  surely  it  is  a  lesson  of  gaiety. 
They  are  only  too  fond  of  rue  and  rosemary,  and  now  and 
then  prefer  the  cypress  to  the  bay.  M.  De  Banville's  muse 
is  content  to  wear  roses  in  her  locks,  and  perhaps  may 
retain,  for  many  years,  a  laurel  leaf  from  the  ancient  laurel 
tree  which  once  sheltered  the  poet  at  Turbia. 


HOMER  AND  THE   STUDY  OF  GREEK. 

THE  Greek  language  is  being  ousted  from  education, 
here,  in  France,  and  in  America.  The  speech  of 
the  earliest  democracies  is  not  democratic  enough  for 
modern  anarchy.  There  is  nothing  to  be  gained,  it  is  said, 
by  a  knowledge  of  Greek.  We  have  not  to  fight  the  battle 
of  life  with  Hellenic  waiters ;  and,  even  if  we  had,  Romaic, 
or  modern  Greek,  is  much  more  easily  learned  than  the 
old  classical  tongue.  The  reason  of  this  comparative  ease 
will  be  plain  to  any  one  who,  retaining  a  vague  memory 
of  his  Greek  grammar,  takes  up  a  modern  Greek  news- 
paper. He  will  find  that  the  idioms  of  the  modern  news- 
paper are  the  idioms  of  all  newspapers,  that  the  grammar 
is  the  grammar  of  modern  languages,  that  the  opinions  are 
expressed  in  barbarous  translations  of  barbarous  French 
and  English  journalistic  cliches  or  commonplaces.  This  ugly 
and  undignified  mixture  of  the  ancient  Greek  characters,  and 
of  ancient  Greek  words  with  modern  grammar  and  idioms, 
and  stereotyped  phrases,  is  extremely  distasteful  ta  the 
scholar.  Modern  Greek,  as  it  is  at  present  printed,  is  not 
the  natural  spoken  language  of  the  peasants.  You  can  read 
a  Greek  leading  article,  though  you  can  hardly  make  sense 
of  a  Greek  rural  ballad.  The  peasant  speech  is  a  thing  of 
slow  development ;  there  is  a  basis  of  ancient  Greek  in  it, 


78  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

with  large  elements  of  Slavonic,  Turkish,  Italian,  and  other 
imposed  or  imported  languages.  Modern  literary  Greek 
is  a  hybrid  of  revived  classical  words,  blended  with  the 
idioms  of  the  speeches  which  have  arisen  since  the  fall 
of  the  Roman  Empire.  Thus,  thanks  to  the  modern  and 
familiar  element  in  it,  modern  Greek  "  as  she  is  writ " 
is  much  more  easily  learned  than  ancient  Greek.  Conse- 
quently, if  any  one  has  need  for  the  speech  in  business 
or  travel,  he  can  acquire  as  much  of  it  as  most  of  us 
have  of  French,  with  considerable  ease.  People  there- 
fore argue  that  ancient  Greek  is  particularly  superfluous 
in  schools.  Why  waste  time  on  it,  they  ask,  which  could 
be  expended  on  science,  on  modern  languages,  or  any  other 
branch  of  education  ?  There  is  a  great  deal  of  justice  in 
this  position.  The  generation  of  men  who  are  now  middle- 
aged  bestowed  much  time  and  labour  on  Greek;  and  in 
what,  it  may  be  asked;  are  they  better  for  it  ?  Very  few 
of  them  "  keep  up  their  Greek."  Say,  for  example,  that 
one  was  in  a  form  with  fifty  boys  who  began  the  study, 
it  is  odds  against  five  of  the  survivors  still  reading  Greek 
books.  The  worldly  advantages  of  the  study  are  slight :  it 
may  lead  three  of  the  fifty  to  a  good  degree,  and  one  to  a 
fellowship;  but  good  degrees  may  be  taken  in  other  subjects, 
and  fellowships  may  be  abolished,  or  "  nationalised,"  with 
all  other  forms  of  property. 

Then,  why  maintain  Greek  in  schools  ?  Only  a  very 
minute  percentage  of  the  boys  who  are  tormented  with 
it  really  learn  it.  Only  a  still  smaller  percentage  can 
read  it  after  they  are  thirty.  Only  one  or  two  gain  any 
material  advantage  by  it.  In  very  truth,  most  minds  are 
not  framed  by  nature  to  excel  and  to  delight  in  literature, 


HOMER  AND   THE  STUDY  OF  GREEK.       .79 

and  only  to  such  minds  and  to  schoolmasters  is  Greek 
valuable. 

This  is  the  case  against  Greek  put  as  powerfully  as  one 
can  state  it.  On  the  other  side,  we  may  say,  though  the 
remark  may  seem  absurd  at  first  sight,  that  to  have  mastered 
Greek,  even  if  you  forget  it,  is  not  to  have  wasted  time.  It 
really  is  an  educational  and  mental  discipline.  The  study 
is  so  severe  that  it  needs  the  earnest  application  of  the 
mind.  The  study  is  averse  to  indolent  intellectual  ways ;  it 
will  not  put  up  with  a  "  there  or  thereabouts,"  any  more 
than  mathematical  ideas  admit  of  being  made  to  seem 
"  extremely  plausible."  He  who  writes,  and  who  may 
venture  to  offer  himself  as  an  example,  is  naturally  of  a 
most  slovenly  and  slatternly  mental  habit.  It  is  his  con- 
stant temptation  to  "  scamp  "  every  kind  of  work,  and  to 
say  "  it  will  do  well  enough."  He  hates  taking  trouble 
and  verifying  references.  And  he  can  honestly  confess  that 
nothing  in  his  experience  has  so  helped,  in  a  certain  degree, 
to  counteract  those  tendencies — as  the  labour  of  thoroughly 
learning  certain  Greek  texts — the  dramatists,  Thucydides, 
some  of  the  books  of  Aristotle.  Experience  has  satisfied 
him  that  Greek  is  of  real  educational  value,  and,  apart  from 
the  acknowledged  and  unsurpassed  merit  of  its  literature,  is 
a  severe  and  logical  training  of  the  mind.  '  The  mental 
constitution  is  strengthened  and  braced  by  the  labour, 
even  if  the  language  is  forgotten  in  later  life. 

It  is  manifest,  however,  that  this  part  of  education  is  not 
foi  everybody.  The  real  educational  problem  is  to  dis- 
cover what  boys  Greek  will  be  good  for,  and  what  boys  will 
only  waste  time  and  dawdle  over  it.  Certainly  to  men  of  a 
literary  turn  (a  very  minute  percentage),  Greek  is  of  an 


8o  .  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

inestimable  value.  Great  poets,  even,  may  be  ignorant  of 
it,  as  Shakespeare  probably  was,  as  Keats  and  Scott  certainly 
were,  as  Alexandre  Dumas  was.  But  Dumas  regretted  his 
ignorance;  Scott  regretted  it.  We  know  not  how  much 
Scott's  admitted  laxity  of  style  and  hurried  careless  habit 
might  have  been  modified  by  a  knowledge  of  Greek;  how 
much  of  grace,  permanence,  and  generally  of  art,  his  genius 
might  have  gained  from  the  language  and  literature  of 
Hellas.  The  most  Homeric  of  modern  men  could  not 
read  Homer.  As  for  Keats,  he  was  born.a  Greek,  it  has 
been  said ;  but  had  he  been  born  with  a  knowledge  of 
Greek,  he  never,  probably,  would  have  been  guilty  of  his 
chief  literary  faults.  This  is  not  certain,  for  some  modern 
men  of  letters  deeply  read  in  Greek  have  all  the  qualities 
of  fustian  and  effusiveness  which  Longinus  most  despised. 
Greek  will  not  make  a  luxuriously  Asiatic  mind  Hellenic, 
it  is  certain ;  but  it  may,  at  least,  help  to  restrain  effusive 
and  rhetorical  gabble.  Our  Asiatic  rhetoricians  might 
perhaps  be  even  more  barbarous  than  they  are  if  Greek 
were  a  sealed  book  to  them.  However  this  may  be,  it  is, 
at  least,  well  to  find  out  in  a  school  what  boys  are  worth 
instructing  in  the  Greek  language.  Now,  of  their  worthi- 
ness, of  their  chances  of  success  in  the  study,  Homer 
seems  the  best  touchstone ;  and  he  is  certainly  the  most 
attractive  guide  to  the  study. 

At  present  boys  are  introduced  to  the  language  of  the 
Muses  by  pedantically  written  grammars,  full  of  the  queerest 
and  most  arid  metaphysical  and  philological  verbiage.  The 
very  English  in  which  these  deplorable  books  are  composed 
may  be  scientific,  may  be  comprehensible  by  and  useful 
to  philologists,  but  is  utterly  heart-breaking  to  boys. 


HOMER  AND   THE  STUDY  OF  GREEK.         8i 

Philology  might  be  made  fascinating ;  the  history  of  a 
word,  and  of  the  processes  by  which  its  different  forms,  in 
different  senses,  were  developed,  might  be  made  as  interest- 
ing as  any  other  story  of  events.  But  grammar  is  not  taught 
thus :  boys  are  introduced  to  a  jargon  about  matters 
meaningless,  and  they  are  naturally  as  much  enchanted  as 
if  they  were  listening  to  a  chimcera  bombinans  in  vacuo.  The 
g  ammar,  to  them,  is  a  mere  buzz  in  a  chaos  of  nonsense. 
They  have  to  learn  the  buzz  by  rote  ;  and  a  pleasant  process 
that  is — a  seductive  initiation  into  the  mysteries.  When 
they  struggle  so  far  as  to  be  allowed  to  try  to  read  a  piece 
of  Greek  prose,  they  are  only  like  the  Marchioness  in  her 
experience  of  beer :  she  once  had  a  sip  of  it.  Ten  lines  of 
Xenophon,  narrating  how  he  marched  so  many  parasangs 
and  took  breakfast,  do  not  amount  to  more  than  a  very 
unrefreshing  sip  of  Greek.  Nobody  even  tells  the  boys  who 
Xenophon  was,  what  he  did  there,  and  what  it  was  all 
about.  Nobody  gives  a  brief  and  interesting  sketch  of  the 
great  march,  of  its  history  and  objects.  The  boys  straggle 
along  with  Xenophon,  knowing  P'^t  whence  or  whither : 

"  They  stray  through  a  desolate  region, 
And  often  are  faint  on  the  march." 

One  by  one  they  fall  out  of  the  ranks  ;  they  mutiny  against 

Xenophon ;   they  murmur  against   that  commander ;  they 

desert  his  flag.     They  determine  that  anything   is   better 

than  Greek,  that  nothing  can   be  worse  than  Greek,  and 

they  move  the  tender  hearts  of  their  parents.     They  are 

put  to  learn  German ;  which  they  do  not  learn,  unluckily, 

but  which   they  find   it   comparatively  easy  to   shirk.     In 

brief,  they  leave  school  without   having  learned  anything 

whatever. 

w.  L.-I.  5 


82  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Up  to  a  certain  age  my  experiences  at  school  were  pre- 
cisely those  which  I  have  described.  Our  grammar  was 
not  so  philological,  abstruse  and  arid  as  the  instruments  of 
torture  employed  at  present.  But  I  hated  Greek  with  a 
deadly  and  sickening  hatred ;  I  hated  it  like  a  bully  and  a 
thief  of  time.  The  verbs  in  yu,i  completed  my  intellectual 
discomfiture,  and  Xenophon  routed  me  with  horrible  carnage. 
I  could  have  run  away  to  sea,  but  for  a  strong  impression 
that  a  life  on  the  ocean  wave  "  did  not  set  my  genius,"  as 
Alan  Breck  says.  Then  we  began  to  read  Homer;  and 
from  the  very  first  words,  in  which  the  Muse  is  asked  to 
sing  the  wrath  of  Achilles,  Peleus'  son,  my  mind  was  altered, 
and  I  was  the  devoted  friend  of  Greek.  Here  was  some- 
thing worth  reading  about ;  here  one  knew  where  one  was  ; 
here  was  the  music  of  words,  here  were  poetry,  pleasure, 
and  life.  We  fortunately  had  a  teacher  (Dr.  Hodson)  who 
was  not  wildly  enthusiastic  about  grammar.  He  would  set 
us  long  pieces  of  the  Iliad  or  Odyssey  to  learn,  and, 
when  the  day's  task  was  done,  would  make  us  read  on, 
adventuring  ourselves  in  "  the  unseen,"  and  construing  as 
gallantly  as  we  might,  without  grammar  or  dictionary.  On 
the  following  day  we  surveyed  more  carefully  the  ground 
we  had  pioneered  or  skirmished  over,  and  then  advanced 
again.  Thus,  to  change  the  metaphor,  we  took  Homer  in 
large  draughts,  not  in  sips  :  in  sips  no  epic  can  be  enjoyed. 
We  now  revelled  in  Homer  like  Keats  in  Spenser,  like 
young  horses  let  loose  in  a  pasture.  The  result  was  not  the 
making  of  many  accurate  scholars,  though  a  few  were  made ; 
others  got  nothing  better  than  enjoyment  in  their  work,  and 
the  firm  belief,  opposed  to  that  of  most  schoolboys,  that 
the  ancients  did  not  write  nonsense.     To  love  Homer,  as 


HOMER  AND   THE  STUDY  OF  GREEK.         83 

Steele  said  about  loving  a  fair  lady  of  quality,  "  is  a  liberal 
education.'' 

Judging  from  this  example,  I  venture  very  humbly  to 
think  that  any  one  who,  even  at  the  age  of  Cato,  wants  to 
learn  Greek,  should  begin  where  Greek  literature,  where 
all  profane  literature  begins — with  Homer  himself.  It  was 
thus,  not  with  grammars  in  vacuo,  that  the  great  scholars 
of  the  Renaissance  began.  It  was  thus  that  Ascham  and 
Rabelais  began,  by  jumping  into  Greek  and  splashing  about 
till  they  learned  to  swim.  First,  of  course,  a  person  must 
learn  the  Greek  characters.  Then  his  or  her  tutor  may 
make  him  read  a  dozen  lines  of  Homer,  marking  the 
cadence,  the  surge  and  thunder  of  the  hexameters — a  music 
which,  like  that  of  the  Sirens,  few  can  hear  without  being 
lured  to  the  seas  and  isles  of  song.  Then  the  tutor  might 
translate  a  passage  of  moving  interest,  like  Priam's  appeal 
to  Achilles  ;  first,  of  course,  explaining  the  situation.  Then 
the  teacher  might  go  over  some  lines,  minutely  pointing  out 
how  the  Greek  words  are  etymologically  connected  with 
many  words  in  English.  Next,  he  might  take  a  substantive 
and  a  veib,  showing  roughly  how  their  inflections  arose  and 
were  developed,  and  how  they  retain  forms  in  Homer  which 
do  not  occur  in  later  Greek.  There  is  no  reason  why  even 
this  part  of  the  lesson  should  be  uninteresting.  By  this 
lime  a  pupil  would  know,  more  or  less,  where  he  was,  what 
Greek  is,  and  what  the  Homeric  poems  are  like.  He  might 
thus  believe  from  the  first  that  there  are  good  reasons  for 
knov;ing  Greek;  that  it  is  the  key  to  many  worlds  of  life, 
of  action,  of  beauty,  of  contemplation,  of  knowledge.  Then, 
after  a  few  more  exercises  in  Homer,  the  grammar  being 
judiciously  worked  in  along  with  the  literature  of  the  epic, 


84  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

a  teacher  might  discern  whether  it  was  worth  while  for  his 
pupils  to  continue  in  the  study  of  Greek.  Homer  would  be 
their  guide  into  the  "  realms  of  gold." 

It  is  clear  enough  that  Homer  is  the  best  guide.  His  is 
the  oldest  extant  Greek,  his  matter  is  the  most  various  and 
delightful,  and  most  appeals  to  the  young,  who  are  wearied 
by  scraps  of  Xenophon,  and  who  cannot  be  expected  to 
understand  the  Tragedians.  But  Homer  is  a  poet  for  all 
ages,  all  races,  and  all  moods.  To  the  Greeks  the  epics 
were  not  only  the  best  of  romances,  the  richest  of  poetry ; 
not  only  their  oldest  documents  about  their  own  history, — 
they  were  also  their  Bible,  their  treasury  of  religious  tradi- 
tions and  moral  teaching.  With  the  Bible  and  Shakespeare, 
the  Homeric  poems  are  the  best  training  for  life.  There 
is  no  good  quality  that  they  lack  :  manliness,  courage,  rever- 
ence for  old  age  and  for  the  hospitable  hearth  ;  justice, 
piety,  pity,  a  brave  attitude  towards  life  and  death,  are  all 
conspicuous  in  Homer.  He  has  to  write  of  battles;  and 
he  delights  in  the  joy  of  battle,  and  in  all  the  movement 
of  war.  Yet  he  delights  not  less,  but  more,  in  peace  :  in 
prosperous  cities,  hearths  secure,  in  the  tender  beauty  of 
children,  in  the  love  of  wedded  wives,  in  the  frank  nobility 
of  maidens,  in  the  beauty  of  earth  and  sky  and  sea,  and 
seaward  murmuring  river,  in  sun  and  snow,  frost  and  mist 
and  rain,  in  the  whispered  talk  of  boy  and  girl  beneath  oak 
and  pine  tree. 

Living  in  an  age  where  every  man  was  a  warrior,  where 
every  city  might  know  the  worst  of  sack  and  fire,  where  the 
noblest  ladies  might  be  led  away  for  slaves,  to  light  the  fire 
and  make  the  bed  of  a  foreign  master,  Homer  inevitably 
regards  life  as  a  battle.     To  each  man  on  earth  comes  **  the 


HOMER  AND   THE  STUDY  OF  GREEK.  85 

wicked  day  of  destiny,"  as  Malory  unconsciously  translates 
it,  and  each  man  must  face  it  as  hardily  as  he  may. 

Homer  encourages  them  by  all  the  maxims  of  chivalry 
and  honour.  His  heart  is  with  the  brave  of  either  side — 
with  Glaucus  and  Sarpedon  of  Lycia  no  less  than  with 
Achilles  and  Patroclus.  "  Ah,  friend,"  cries  Sarpedon,  "  if 
once  escaped  from  this  battle  we  were  for  ever  to  be  ageless 
and  immortal,  neither  would  I  myself  fight  now  in  the  fore- 
most ranks,  nor  would  I  urge  thee  into  the  wars  that  give 
renown ;  but  now — for  assuredly  ten  thousand  fates  of  death 
on  every  side  beset  us,  and  these  may  no  man  shun,  nor 
none  avoid — forward  now  let  us  go,  whether  we  are  to  give 
glory  or  to  win  it ! "  And  forth  they  go,  to  give  and  take 
renown  and  death,  all  the  shields  and  helms  of  Lycia 
shining  behind  them,  through  the  dust  of  battle,  the  singing 
of  the  arrows,  the  hurtling  of  spears,  the  rain  of  stones  from 
the  Locrian  slings.  And  shields  are  smitten,  and  chariot- 
horses  run  wild  with  no  man  to  drive  them,  and  Sarpedon 
drags  down  a  portion  of  the  Achaean  battlement,  and  Aias 
leaps  into  the  trench  with  his  deadly  spear,  and  the  whole 
battle  shifts  and  shines  beneath  the  sun.  Yet  he  who  sings  of 
the  war,  and  sees  it  with  his  sightless  eyes,  sees  also  the  Trojan 
women  working  at  the  loom,  cheating  their  anxious  hearts 
with  broidery  work  of  gold  and  scarlet,  or  raising  the  song 
to  Athene,  or  heating  the  bath  for  Hector,  who  never  again 
may  pass  within  the  gates  of  Troy.  He  sees  the  poor  weav- 
ing woman,  weighing  the  wool,  that  she  may  not  defraud 
her  employers,  and  yet  may  win  bread  for  her  children. 
He  sees  the  children,  the  golden  head  of  Astyanax,  his 
shrinking  from  the  splendour  of  the  hero's  helm.  He 
sees  the  child  Odysseus,  going  with  his  father  through  the 


86  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

orchard,  and  choosing  out  some  apple  trees  "  for  his  very 
own."  It  is  in  the  mouth  of  the  ruthless  Achilles,  the  fatal, 
the  fated,  the  swift-footed  hero  with  the  hands  of  death,  that 
Homer  places  the  tenderest  of  his  similes.  "Wherefore 
weepest  thou,  Patroclus,  like  a  fond  little  maid,  that  runs 
by  her  mother's  side,  praying  her  mother  to  take  her  up, 
snatching  at  her  gown,  and  hindering  her  as  she  walks, 
and  tearfully  looking  at  her  till  her  mother  takes  her  up  ? 
— like  her,  Patroclus,  dost  thou  softly  weep." 

This  is  what  Chesterfield  calls  "  the  porter-like  language 
of  Homer's  heroes."  Such  are  the  moods  of  Homer,  so 
full  of  love  of  life  and  all  things  living,  so  rich  in  all 
human  sympathies,  so  readily  moved  when  the  great  hound 
Argus  welcomes  his  master,  whom  none  knew  after  twenty 
years,  but  the  hound  knew  him,  and  died  in  that  w^elcome. 
With  all  this  love  of  the  real,  which  makes  him  dwell 
so  fondly  on  every  detail  of  armour,  of  implement,  of  art ; 
on  the  divers-coloured  gold-work  of  the  shield,  on  the 
making  of  tires  for  chariot-wheels,  on  the  forging  of  iron, 
on  the  rose-tinted  ivory  of  the  Sidonians,  on  cooking  and 
eating  and  sacrificing,  on  pet  dogs,  on  wasps  and  their 
ways,  on  fishing,  on  the  boar  hunt,  on  scenes  in  baths 
where  fair  maidens  lave  water  over  the  heroes,  on  undis- 
covered isles  with  good  harbours  and  rich  land,  on  ploughing, 
mowing,  and  sowing,  on  the  furniture  of  houses,  on  the 
golden  vases  wherein  the  white  dust  of  the  dead  is  laid, — 
with  all  this  delight  in  the  real,  Homer  is  the  most 
romantic  of  poets.  He  walks  with  the  surest  foot  in  the 
darkling  realm  of  dread  Persephone,  beneath  the  poplars 
on  the  solemn  last  beach  of  Ocean.  He  has  heard  the 
Siren's  music,  and  the  song  of  Circe,  chanting  as  she  walks 


HOMER  AND   THE  STUDY  OF  GREEK.         87 

to  and  fro,  casting  the  golden  shuttle  through  the  loom 
of  gold.  He  enters  the  cave  of  the  Man  Eater  ;  he  knows 
the  unsunned  land  of  the  Cimmerians;  in  the  summer  of 
the  North  he  has  looked,  from  the  fiord  of  the  Laestrygons, 
on  the  Midnight  Sun.  He  has  dwelt  on  the  floating  isle 
of  ^olus,  with  its  wall  of  bronze  unbroken,  and  has  sailed 
on  those  Phaeacian  barks  that  need  no  help  of  helm  or 
oar,  that  fear  no  stress  either  of  wind  or  tide,  that  come 
and  go  and  return  obedient  to  a  thought  and  silent  as  a 
dream.  He  has  seen  the  four  maidens  of  Circe,  daughters 
of  wells  and  woods,  and  of  sacred  streams.  He  is  the 
second-sighted  man,  and  beholds  the  shroud  that  wraps  the 
living  who  are  doomed,  and  the  mystic  dripping  from  the 
walls  of  blood  yet  unshed.  He  has  walked  in  the  garden 
closes  of  Phseacia,  and  looked  on  the  face  of  gods  who 
fare  thither,  and  watch  the  weaving  of  the  dance.  He  has 
eaten  the  honey-sweet  fruit  of  the  lotus,  and  from  the  hand 
of  Helen  he  brings  us  that  Egyi)tian  nepenthe  which  puts 
all  sorrow  out  of  mind.  His  real  world  is  as  real  as  that 
in  Henry  V.,  his  enchanted  isles  are  charmed  with  the 
magic  of  the  Tempest.  His  young  wooers  are  as  insolent 
as  Claudio,  as  flushed  with  youth ;  his  beggar-men  are 
brethren  of  Edie  Ochiltree ;  his  Nausicaa  is  sister  to 
Rosalind,  with  a  difl"erent  charm  of  stately  purity  in  love. 
His  enchantresses  hold  us  yet  with  their  sorceries;  his 
Helen  is  very  Beauty:  she  has  all  the  sweetness  of  ideal 
womanhood,  and  her  repentance  is  without  remorse.  His 
Achilles  is  youth  itself,  glorious,  cruel,  pitiful,  splendid,  and 
sad,  ardent  and  loving,  and  conscious  of  its  doom.  Homer, 
in  truth,  is  to  be  matched  only  with  Shakespeare,  and  of 
Shakespeare  he  has  not  the  occasional  wilfulness,  freakish- 


88  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE.    . 

ness,  and  modish  obscurity.  He  is  a  poet  all  of  gold, 
universal  as  humanity,  simple  as  childhood,  musical  now 
as  the  flow  of  his  own  rivers,  now  as  the  heavy  plunging 
wave  of  his  own  Ocean. 

Such,  then,  as  far  as  weak  words  can  speak  of  him,  is  the 
first  and  greatest  of  poets.  This  is  he  whom  English  boys 
are  to  be  ignorant  of,  if  Greek  be  ousted  from  our  schools, 
or  are  to  know  only  in  the  distorting  mirror  of  a  versified, 
or  in  the  pale  shadow  of  a  prose  translation.  Translations 
are  good  only  as  teachers  to  bring  men  to  Homer.  English 
verse  has  no  measure  which  even  remotely  suggests  the 
various  flow  of  the  hexameter.  Translators  who  employ 
verse  give  us  a  feeble  Homer,  dashed  with  their  own 
conceits,  and  moulded  to  their  own  style.  Translators  who 
employ  prose  "tell  the  story  without  the  song,"  but,  at 
least,  they  add  no  twopenny  "  beauties  "  and  cheap  conceits 
of  their  own. 

I  venture  to  offer  a  few  examples  of  original  translation, 
in  which  the  mannerisms  of  poets  who  have,  or  have  not, 
translated  Homer,  are  parodied,  and,  of  course  (except  in 
the  case  of  Pope),  exaggerated.  The  passage  is  the  speech 
of  the  Second-sighted  Man,  before  the  slaying  of  the 
wooers  in  the  hall  : — 

"  Ah!  wretched  men,  what  ill  is  this  ye  suffer  ?  In  night  are  swathed 
your  heads,  your  faces,  your  knees  ;  ami  the  voice  of  wailing  is  kindled, 
and  cheeks  are  wet  wiih  tears,  and  with  blood  drip  the  walls,  and  the 
fair  main  beams  of  the  roof,  and  the  porch  is  full  of  shadows,  and  full 
is  the  courtyard,  of  ghosts  that  hasten  hellward  below  the  darkness, 
and  the  sun  has  perished  out  of  heaven,  and  an  evil  mist  sweeps  up 
over  alL" 

So  much    for   Homer.     The    first  attempt  at  metrical 


HOMER  AND   THE  STUDY  OF  GREEK.         89 

translation  here  given  is    meant  to  be  in  the  manner  of 
Pope : 

"  Caitiffs  !  "  he  cried,  "  what  heaven-directed  blight 
Involves  each  countenance  with  clouds  of  night  ! 
What  pearly  drop  the  ashen  cheek  bedews  ! 
Why  do  the  walls  with  gouts  ensanguined  ooze  ? 
The  court  is  thronged  with  ghosts  that  'neath  the  gloom 
Seek  Pluto's  realm,  and  Dis's  awful  doom  ; 
In  ebon  curtains  Phoebus  hides  his  he  id, 
And  sable  mist  creeps  upward  f<om  the  dead." 

This  appears  pretty  bad,  and  nearly  as  un-Homeric  as  a 
translation  could  possibly  be.  But  Pope,  aided  by  Broome 
and  Fenton,  managed  to  be  much  less  Homeric,  much 
more  absurd,  and  infinitely  more  "  classical "  in  the  sense 
in  which  Pope  is  classical : 

"  O  race  to  death  devote  !  with  Stygian  shade 
Each  destined  peer  impending  fates  invade  ; 
With  tears  your  wan  distorted  cheeks  are  drowned  ; 
With  sanguine  drops  the  walls  are  rubied  round  : 
Thick  swarms  the  spacious  hall  with  howling  ghosts, 
To  people  Orcus  and  the  burning  coasts  ! 
Nor  gives  the  sun  his  golden  orb  to  roll, 
But  universal  night  usurps  the  pole." 

Who  could  have  conjectured  that  even  Pope  would 
wander  away  so  far  from  his  matchless  original  ? 
"  Wretches  ! "  cries  Theoclymenus,  the  seer  ;  and  that 
becomes,  "  O  race  to  death  devote  ! "  "  Your  heads  are 
swathed  in  night,"  turns  into  "  With  Stygian  shade  each 
destined  peer "  (peer  is  good  !)  "  impending  fates  invade," 
where  Homer  says  nothing  about  Sty.x  nor  peers.  The 
I.^tin  Orcus  takes  the  place  of  Erebus,  and  "  the  burning 
coasts"  are  derived  from  modern  popular  theology.  The 
very  grammar  detains  or  defies  the  reader  ;  is  it  the  sun 
that  does  not  give  his  golden  orb  to  roll,  or  who,  or  what  ? 


90  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

The  only  place  where  the  latter-day  Broome  or  Fenton 
can  flatter  himself  that  he  rivals  Pope  at  his  own  game  is — 

"  What  pearly  drop  the  ashen  cheek  bedews  !" 
This  is,  if  possible,  more  classical  than  Pope's  own — • 

"  With  tears  your  wan  distorted  cheeks  are  drowned." 

But  Pope  nobly  revindicates  his  unparalleled  power  of  trans- 
lating funnily,  when,  in  place  of  "  the  walls  drip  with  blood," 
he  writes — 

"  With  sanguine  drops  the  walls  are  rubied  round." 

Homer  does  not  appear  to  have  been  acquainted  with 
rubies;  but  what  of  that?  And  how  noble,  how  eminently 
worthy  of  Pope  it  is  to  add  that  the  ghosts  "  howl "  1  I 
tried  to  make  them  gibber,  but  ghosts  do  gibber  in  Homer 
(though  not  in  this  passage),  so  Pope,  Fenton,  Broome,  and 
Co.,  make  them  howl. 

No,  Pope  is  not  lightly  to  be  rivalled  by  a  modern 
translator.  The  following  example,  a  far-off  following  of 
a  noted  contemporary  poet,  may  be  left  unsigned — 

"Wretches,  the  bane  hath  befallen,  the  night  and  the  blight  of  your  sin 
Sweeps  like  a  shroud  o'er  the  faces  and  limbs  that  were  gladsome 

therein ; 
And  the  dirge  of  the  dead  breaketh  forth,  and  the  faces  of  all  men  are  wet, 
And  the  walls  are  besprinkled  with  blood,  and  the  ghosts  in  the  gateway 

are  met. 
Ghosts  in  the  court  and  the  gateway  are  ga  hered.  Hell  opens  her  lips, 
And  the  sun  in  his  splendour  is  shrouded,  and  sickens  in  spasm  of 

eclipse." 

The  next  is  longer  and  slower  :  the  poet  has  a  difficulty 
in  telling  his  story  : 

"Wretches,"  he  cried,  "what  doom  is  this?  what  night 
Clings  like  a  face  cloth  to  the  face  of  each, — 
Sweeps  like  a  shroud  o'er  knees  and  head  ?  for  lo  ! 


HOMER  AND   THE  STUDY  OF  GREEK.         91 

The  windy  wail  of  death  is  up,  and  tears 
On  every  theek  are  wet ;  each  shining  wall 
And  beauteous  interspace  of  beam  and  beam 
Weeps  tears  of  blood,  and  shadows  in  the  door 
Flicker,  and  fill  the  portals  and  the  court — 
Shadows  of  men  that  hellwards  yearn — and  now 
The  sun  him5elf  hath  perished  out  of  heaven, 
And  all  the  land  is  darkened  with  a  mist." 

That  could  never  be  mistaken  for  a  version  by  the  Laureate, 
as  perhaps  any  contemporary  hack's  works  might  have  been 
taken  for  Pope's.  The  difficulty,  perhaps,  lies  here :  any 
one  knows  where  to  have  Pope,  any  one  knows  that  he  will 
evade  the  mot  propre,  though  the  precise  evasion  he  may 
select  is  hard  to  guess.  But  the  Laureate  would  keep  close 
to  his  text,  and  yet  would  write  like  himself,  very  beauti- 
fully, but  not  with  an  Homeric  swiftness  and  strength. 
Who  is  to  imitate  him  ?  As  to  Mr.  William  Morris,  he 
might  be  fabled  to  render  'A  SetXoi  "  niddering  wights," 
but  beyond  that,  conjecture  is  baffled.*  Or  is  this  the  kind 
of  thing? — 

"  Niddering  wights,  what  a  bane  do  ye  bear,  for  your  knees  in  the  night, 
And  your  heads  and  your  faces,  are  shrouded,  and  clamour  that  knows 

not  delight 
Rings,  and   your  cheeks  are  begrutten,  and  blood   is  besprent  on 

the  walls. 
Blood  on  the  tapestry  fair  woven,  and  barrow- wights  walk  in  the  halls. 
Fetches  and  wraiths  of  the  chosen  of  the  Norns,  and  the  sun  from 

the  lift 
Shudders,  and  over  the  midgarth  and  swan's  bath  the  cloud-shadows 

drift." 

It  may  be  argued  that,  though  this  is  perhaps  a  transla- 
tion, it  is  not  English,  never  was,  and  never  will  be.  But 
it  is  quite  as  like  Homer  as  the  performance  of  Pope. 

Such  as  these,  or  not  so  very  much  better  than  these  as 

•  Conjecture  may  cease,  as  Mr.  Morris  has  translated  the  Odyssey. 


92  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

might  be  wished,  are  our  efforts  to  translate  Homer.  From 
Chapman  to  Avia,  or  Mr,  William  Morris,  they  are  all  emi- 
nently conscientious,  and  erroneous,  and  futile.  Chapman 
makes  Homer  a  fanciful,  euphuistic,  obscure,  and  garrulous 
Elizabethan,  but  Chapman  has  fire.  Pope  makes  him  a 
wit,  spirited,  occasionally  noble,  full  of  points,  and  epigrams, 
and  queer  rococo  conventionalisms.  Cowper  makes  him 
slow,  lumbering,  a  Milton  without  the  music.  Maginn 
makes  him  pipe  an  Irish  jig  : — 

"  Scarcely  had  she  begun  to  wash 
When  she  was  aware  of  the  grisly  gash  ! " 

Lord  Derby  makes  him  respectable  and  ponderous. 
Lord  Tennyson  makes  him  not  less,  but  certainly  not 
more,  than  Tennysonian.  Homer,  in  the  Laureate's  few 
fragments  of  experiment,  is  still  a  poet,  but  he  is  not 
Homer.  Mr.  Morris,  and  Avia,  make  him  Icelandic,  and 
archaistic,  and  hard  to  scan,  though  vigorous  in  his  fetters 
for  all  that.  Bohn  makes  him  a  crib  ;  and  of  other 
translators  in  prose  it  has  been  said,  with  a  humour  which 
one  of  them  appreciates,  that  they  render  Homer  into  a 
likeness  of  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

Homer  is  untranslatable.  None  of  us  can  bend  the  bow 
of  Eurytus,  and  make  the  bow-string  "  ring  sweetly  at  the 
touch,  hke  the  swallow's  song."  The  adventure  is  never  to 
be  achieved ;  and,  if  Greek  is  to  be  dismissed  from 
education,  not  the  least  of  the  sorrows  that  will  ensue  is 
English  ignorance  of  Homer. 


THE    LAST    FASHIONABLE    NOVEL. 

THE  editor  of  a  great  American  newspaper  once  offered 
the  author  of  these  lines  a  commission  to  explore  a 
lost  country,  the  seat  of  a  fallen  and  forgotten  civilisation. 
It  was  not  in  Yucatan,  or  Central  Africa,  or  Thibet,  or 
Kafiristan,  this  desolate  region,  once  so  popular,  so  gaudy, 
so  much  frequented  and  desired.  It  was  only  the  fashion- 
able novels  of  the  Forties,  say  from  1835  to  T850,  that  I 
was  requested  to  examine  and  report  upon.  But  I  shrank 
from  the  colossal  task.  I  am  no  Mr.  Stanley;  and  the 
length,  the  difficulties,  the  arduousness  of  the  labour 
appalled  me.  Besides,  I  do  not  know  where  that  land 
lies,  the  land  of  the  old  Fashionable  Novel,  the  Kor  of 
which  Thackeray's  Lady  Fanny  Flummery  is  the  Ayesha. 
What  were  the  names  of  the  old  novels,  and  who  were 
the  authors,  and  in  the  circulating  library  of  what 
undiscoverable  watering-place  are  they  to  be  found  ?  We 
have  heard  of  Mrs.  Gore,  we  have  heard  of  Tremayne,  and 
Emilia  Wyndham,  and  the  Bachelor  of  the  Albany ;  and 
many  of  us  have  read  Pelham^  or  know  him  out  of  Carlyle's 
art,  and  those  great  curses  which  he  spoke.  But  who  was 
the  original,  or  who  were  the  originals,  that  sat  for  the 
portrait  of  the  "Fashionable  Authoress,"  Lady  Fanny 
Flummery  ?  and  of  what  work  is  Lords  and  Liveries  a 
parody  ?     The  author   is  also  credited  with  Duk  -s  and 


94  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Dejei'iners,  Marchionesses  and  Milliners,  etc.  Could  any 
candidate  in  a  literary  examination  name  the  prototypes? 
"Let  mantua-makers  puff  her,  but  not  men,"  says  Thackeray, 
speaking  of  Lady  Fanny  Flummery,  "  and  the  Fashionable 
Authoress  is  no  more.  Blessed,  blessed  thought !  No 
more  fiddle-faddle  novels  I  When  will  you  arrive,  O  happy 
Golden  Age  ! " 

Well,  it  has  arrived,  though  we  are  none  the  happier  for 
all  that.  The  Fashionable  Novel  has  ceased  to  exist,  and 
the  place  of  the  fashionable  authoress  knows  her  no  more. 
Thackeray  plainly  detested  Lady  Fanny.  He  writes  about 
her,  her  books,  her  critics,  her  successes,  with  a  certain 
bitterness.  Can  it  be  possible  that  a  world  which  rather 
neglected  Barry  Lyndon  was  devoted  to  Marchionesses  and 
Milliners  ?  Lady  Fanny  is  represented  as  having  editors  and 
reviewers  at  her  feet ;  she  sits  among  the  flowers,  like  the 
Sirens,  and  around  her  are  the  bones  of  critics  corrupt  in 
death.  She  is  puffed  for  the  sake  of  her  bouquets,  her 
dinners,  her  affabilities  and  condescensions.  She  gives  a 
reviewer  a  great  garnet  pin,  adorned  wherewith  he  paces  the 
town.  Her  adorers  compare  her  to  "him  who  sleeps  by 
Avon."  In  one  of  Mr.  Black's  novels  there  is  a  lady  of  this 
kind,  who  captivates  the  tribe  of  "  Log  Rollers,"  as  Mr. 
Black  calls  them.  This  lady  appears  to  myself  to  be  a  quite 
impossible  She.  One  has  never  met  her  with  her  wiles, 
nor  come  across  her  track,  even,  and  seen  the  bodies  and 
the  bones  of  those  who  perished  in  puffing  her.  Some 
persons  of  rank  and  fashion  have  a  taste  for  the  society  of 
some  men  of  letters,  but  nothing  in  the  way  of  literary 
puffery  seems  to  come  of  it.  Of  course  many  critics  like  to 
give  their  friends  and  acquaintances  an  applausive  hand, 


THE  LAST  FASHIONABLE  NOVEL.  95 

and  among  their  acquaintances  may  be  ladies  of  fashion 
who  write  novels  ;  but  we  read  nowhere  such  extraordinary 
adulations  as  Augustus  Timson  bestowed  on  Lady  Fanny. 
The  fashionable  authoress  is  nearly  extinct,  though  some 
persons  write  well  albeit  they  are  fashionable.  The  fashion- 
able novel  is  as  dead  as  a  door  nail :  Lothair  was  nearly  the 
last  of  the  species.  There  are  novelists  who  write  about 
"  Society,"  to  be  sure,  like  Mr.  Norris  ;  but  their  tone  is 
quite  different  They  do  not  speak  as  if  Dukes  and  Earls 
•were  some  strange  superior  kind  of  beings ;  their  manner  is 
that  of  men  accustomed  to  and  undazzled  by  Earls,  writing 
for  readers  who  do  not  care  whether  the  hero  is  a  lord  or 
a  commoner.  They  are  "  at  ease,"  though  not  terribly  "  in 
Zion."  Thackeray  himself  introduces  plenty  of  the  peer- 
age, but  it  cannot  be  said  that  he  is  always  at  ease  in  their 
society.  He  remembers  that  they  are  lords,  and  is  on  his 
guard,  very  often,  and  suspicious  and  sarcastic,  except,  per- 
haps when  he  deals  with  a  gentleman  like  Lord  Kew.  He 
examines  them  like  curious  wild  animals  in  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes.  He  is  an  accomplished  naturalist,  and  not  afraid 
of  the  lion  ;  but  he  remembers  that  the  animal  is  royal,  and 
has  a  title.  Mr.  Norris,  for  instance,  shows  nothing  of 
this  mood.  Mr.  Trollope  was  not  afraid  of  his  Dukes  :  he 
thought  none  the  worse  of  a  man  because  he  was  the  high 
and  puissant  prince  of  Omnium.  As  for  most  novelists,  they 
no  longer  paint  fashionable  society  with  enthusiasm.  Mr. 
Henry  James  has  remarked  that  young  British  peers  favour 
the  word  "  beastly," — a  point  which  does  not  always  impress 
itself  into  other  people  so  keenly  as  into  Mr.  Henry  James. 
In  reading  him  you  do  not  forget  that  his  Tufts  are  Tufts. 
But  then  Tufts  are  really  strange  animals  to  the  denizens  of 


96  ESSAYS  IN  UTTLE. 

the  Great  Republic.  Perhaps  the  modern  reah'sm  has  made 
novelists  desert  the  world  where  Dukes  and  Dowagers 
abound.  Novelists  do  not  know  very  much  about  it ;  they 
are  not  wont  to  haunt  the  gilded  saloons,  and  they  prefer 
to  write  about  the  manners  which  they  know.  A  very  good 
novel,  in  these  strange  ruinous  times,  might  be  written  with 
a  Duke  for  hero;  but  nobody  writes  it,  and,  if  anybody  did 
write  it  in  the  modern  manner,  it  would  not  in  the  least 
resemble  the  old  fashionable  novel. 

Here  a  curious  point  arises.  We  have  all  studied  the 
ingenious  lady  who  calls  herself  Ouida.  Now,  is  Ouida,  or 
rather  was  Ouida  in  her  early  state  sublime,  the  last  of  the 
old  fashionable  novelists,  or  did  Thackeray  unconsciously 
prophesy  of  her  when  he  wrote  his  burlesque  Lords  and 
Liveries  ?  Think  of  the  young  earl  of  Bagnigge,  *'  who  was 
never  heard  to  admire  anything  except  a  coulis  de  dindonneau 
h  la  St.  Menehould,  ...  or  the  bouquet  of  a  flask  of  M^doc, 
of  Carbonnell's  best  quality,  or  a  goutte  of  Marasquin,  from 
the  cellars  of  Briggs  and  Hobson."  We  have  met  such 
young  patricians  in  Under  Two  Flags  and  Jdalia.  But 
then  there  is  a  difference  :  Ouida  never  tells  us  that  her  hero 
was  "  blest  with  a  mother  of  excellent  principles,  who  had 
imbued  his  young  mind  with  that  morality  which  is  so 
superior  to  all  the  vain  pomps  of  the  world."  But  a  hero  of 
Ouida's  might  easily  have  had  a  father  who  "  was  struck 
down  by  the  side  of  the  gallant  Collingwood  in  the  Bay  of 
Fundy."  The  heroes  themselves  may  have  "looked  at  the 
Pyramids  without  awe,  at  the  Alps  without  reverence." 
They  do  say  "  CorJ>o  di  Bacco"  and  the  Duca  de  Monte- 
pulcianodoes  reply,  " E' bellissima  certamente"  And  their 
creator  might  conceivably  remark  "  Non  cuivis  coniigit"    But 


THE  LAST  FASHIONABLE  NOVEL.  97 

Lady  Fanny  Flummery's  ladies  could  not  dress  as  Ouida's 
ladies  do  :  they  could  not  quote  Petronius  Arbiter ;  they  had 
never  heard  of  Suetonius.  No  age  reproduces  itself.  There 
is  much  of  our  old  fashionable  authoress  in  Ouida's  earlier 
tales ;  there  is  plenty  of  the  Peerage,  plenty  of  queer  French 
in  old  novels  and  Latin  yet  more  queer ;  but  where  is  the 
Han  which  takes  archaeology  with  a  rush,  which  sticks  at  no 
adventure,  however  nobly  incredible  ?  where  is  the  pathos, 
the  simplicity,  the  purple  splendour  of  Ouida's  manner,  or 
manners?  No,  the  spirit  of  the  world,  mirroring  itself  in 
the  minds  of  individuals,  simpered,  and  that  simper  was 
Lady  Fanny  Flummery.  But  it  did  many  things  more 
portentous  than  simpering,  when  it  reflected  itself  in  Ouida. 
Is  it  that  we  do  no  longer  gape  on  the  aristocracy  admir- 
ingly, and  write  of  them  curiously,  as  if  they  were  creatures 
in  a  Paradise  ?  Is  it  that  Thackeray  has  converted  us  ?  In 
part,  surely,  we  are  just  as  snobbish  as  ever,  though  the 
gods  of  our  adoration  totter  to  their  fall,  and  "a  hideous 
hum  "  from  the  mob  outside  thrills  through  the  temples. 
In  fiction,  on  the  other  hand,  the  world  of  fashion  is  "  played 
out."  Nobody  cares  to  read  or  write  about  the  dear 
duchess.  If  a  peer  comes  into  a  novel  he  comes  in,  not  as 
a  coroneted  curiosity,  but  as  a  man,  just  as  if  he  were  a 
dentist,  or  a  stockbroker.  His  rank  is  an  accident ;  it  used 
to  be  the  essence  of  his  luminous  apparition.  I  scarce 
remember  a  lord  in  all  the  many  works  of  Mr.  Besant,  nor 
do  they  people  the  romances  of  Mr.  Black.  Mr.  Kipling 
does  not  deal  in  them,  nor  Mr.  George  Meredith  much  ; 
Mr.  Haggard  hardly  gets  l>eyond  a  baronet,  and  he  wears 
chain  mail  in  Central  Africa,  and  tools  with  an  axe.  Mrs. 
Oliphant  has  a  Scotch  peer,  but  he  is  less  interesting  and 

W.  L.-I.  y 


98  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

prominent  than  his  family  ghost.  No,  we  have  only 
Ouida  left,  and  Mr.  Norris — who  writes  about  people  of 
fashion,  indeed,  but  who  has  nothing  in  him  of  the  old 
fashionable  novelist. 

Is  it  to  a  Republic,  to  France,  that  we  must  look  for  our 
fashionable  novels — to  France  and  to  America.  Every  third 
person  in  M.  Guy  de  Maupassant's  tales  has  a  "  de,"  and  is 
a  Marquis  or  a  Vicomte.  As  for  M.  Paul  Bourget,  one 
really  can  be  happy  with  him  in  the  fearless  old  fashion. 
With  him  we  meet  Lord  Henry  Bohun,  and  M.  De  Casal  (a 
Vicomte),  and  all  the  Marquises  and  Marquises ;  and  all 
the  pale  blue  boudoirs,  and  sentimental  Duchesses,  whose 
hearts  are  only  too  good,  and  who  get  into  the  most 
complicated  amorous  scrapes.  That  young  Republican,  M. 
Bourget,  sincerely  loves  a  blason,  a  pedigree,  diamonds, 
lace,  silver  dressing  cases,  silver  baths,  essences,  pomatums, 
le  grand  luxe.  So  does  Gyp :  apart  from  her  wit.  Gyp  is 
delightful  to  read,  introducing  us  to  the  very  best  of  bad 
company.  Even  M.  Fortune  du  Boisgobey  likes  a  Vicomte, 
and  is  partial  to  the  noblesse,  while  M.  Georges  Ohnet  is 
accused  of  entering  the  golden  world  of  rank,  like  a  man 
without  a  wedding  garment,  and  of  being  lost  and  at  sea 
among  his  aristocrats.  They  order  these  things  better  in 
France :  they  still  appeal  to  the  fine  old  natural  taste  for 
rank  and  luxury,  splendour  and  refinement.  What  is  Gyp 
but  a  Lady  Fanny  Flummery  reussie, — Lady  Fanny  with 
the  trifling  additional  qualities  of  wit  and  daring  ?  Observe 
her  noble  scorn  of  M.  George  Ohnet :  it  is  a  fashionable 
arrogance. 

To  my  mind,  I  confess,  the  decay  of  the  British  fashion- 
able novel  seems  one  of  the  most  threatening  signs  of  the 


THE  LAST  FASHIONABLE  NOVEL.  99 

times.  Even  in  France  institutions  are  much  more  per- 
manent than  here.  In  France  they  have  fashionable 
novels,  and  very  good  novels  too :  no  man  of  sense  will 
deny  that  they  are  far  better  than  our  dilettantism  of  the 
slums,  or  our  religious  and  social  tracts  in  the  disguise  of 
romance.  If  there  is  no  new  tale  of  treasure  and  bandits 
and  fights  and  lions  handy,  may  I  have  a  fashionable  novel 
in  French  to  fall  back  upon  !  •  Even  Count  Tolstoi  does  not 
disdain  the  genre.  There  is  some  uncommonly  high  life 
in  Anna  Karenine.  He  adds  a  great  deal  of  psychology 
to  be  sure  ;  so  does  M.  Paul  Bourget.  But  he  takes  you 
among  smart  people,  who  have  everything  handsome  about 
them — tides,  and  lands,  and  rents.  Is  it  not  a  hard  thing 
that  an  honest  British  snob,  if  he  wants  to  move  in  the 
highest  circles  of  fiction,  must  turn  to  French  novelists,  or 
Russian,  or  American  ?  As  to  the  American  novels  of  the 
elite  and  the  beau  monde,  their  elegance  is  obscured  to 
English  eyes,  because  that  which  makes  one  New  Yorker 
better  than  another,  that  which  creates  the  Upper  Ten 
Thousand  (dear  phrase  !)  of  New  York,  is  so  inconspicuous. 
For  example,  the  scientific  inquirer  may  venture  himself 
among  the  novels  of  two  young  American  authors.  Few 
English  students  make  this  voyage  of  exploration.  But 
the  romances  of  these  ingenious  writers  are  really,  or  really 
try  to  be,  a  kind  of  fashionable  novels.  It  is  a  queer 
domain  of  fashion,  to  be  sure,  peopled  by  the  strangest 
aborigines,  who  talk  and  are  talked  about  in  a  language 
most  interesting  to  the  philologist.  Here  poor  Lady  Fanny 
Plummery  would  have  been  sadly  to  seek,  for  her  charac- 
ters, though  noble,  were  moral,  and  her  pen  was  wielded  on 
the  side  of  Church  and  State.    But  these  western  fashionables 


lOO  ESSAVS  IN  LITTLE. 

have  morals  and  a  lingo  of  their  own,  made  in  equal  parts 
of  the  American  idioms  and  of  expressions  transferred  from 
the  jargon  of  Decadence  and  the  Parnassiculd  Contem- 
porain.  As  one  peruses  these  novels  one  thinks  of  a  new 
tale  to  be  told — The  Last  of  the  Fashionables,  who  died  away, 
like  the  buffalo  and  the  grisly  bear,  in  some  canon  or  forest 
of  the  Wild  West.  I  think  this  distinguished  being,  Ultimus 
hominum  venusttorum,  will  find  the  last  remnants  of  the 
Gentlemanly  Party  in  some  Indian  tribe,  Apaches  or  Sioux. 
I  see  him  raised  to  the  rank  of  chief,  and  leading  the  red- 
skinned  and  painted  cavaliers  on  the  war-path  against  the 
Vulgarians  of  the  ultimate  Democracy.  To  depict  this 
dandy  chief  would  require  the  art  at  once  of  a  Cooper  and 
a  Ouida.     Let  me  attempt — 

THE   LAST    FIGHT   OF    FOUR    HAIR-BRUSHES. 
^  ^  *  *  *  *  % 

By  this  time  the  Sioux  were  flying  in  all  directions, 
mowed  down  by  the  fire  of  Galling  and  Maxim  guns.  The 
scrub  of  Little  Big  Horn  Creek  was  strewn  with  the  bodies 
of  writhing  braves.  On  the  livid  and  volcanic  heights  of 
Mount  Buncombe,  the  painted  tents  were  blazing  merrily. 
But  on  a  mound  above  the  creek,  an  ancient  fortress  of 
some  long-forgotten  people,  a  small  group  of  Indian 
horsemen,  might  be  observed,  steady  as  rocks  in  the  refluent 
tide  of  war.  The  fire  from  their  Winchester  repeaters 
blazed  out  like  the  streamers  of  the  Northern  Lights. 
Again  and  again  the  flower  of  the  United  States  army 
had  charged  up  the  mound,  only  to  recoil  in  flight,  or  to 
line  the  cliff  with  their  corpses.  The  First  Irish  Cuirassiers 
had  been  annihilated  :  Parnell  s  own,  alas !  in  the  heat  of 


THE  LAST  FASHIONABLE  NOVEL.  loi 

the  combat  had  turned  their  fratricidal  black-thorns  on 
M'Carthy's  brigade,  and  these  two  gallant  squadrons  were 
mixed  and  broken,  falling  beneath  the  blows  of  brothers 
estranged. 

But  at  last  the  fire  from  the  Redmen  on  the  bluff 
slackened  and  grew  silent.  The  ammunition  was  exhausted. 
There  was  a  movement  in  the  group  of  braves.  Crazy 
Horse  and  Bald  Coyote  turned  to  Four  Hair-Brushes,  who 
sat  his  steed  Atalanta,  last  winner  of  the  last  Grand 
National,  with  all  the  old  careless  elegance  of  the  Row. 

"Four  Hair-Brushes,"  said  Crazy  Horse  (and  a  tear 
rolled  down  his  painted  cheek),  "  nought  is  left  but  flight." 

"  Then  fly,"  said  Four  Hair-Brushes,  languidly,  lighting  a 
cigarette,  which  he  took  from  a  diamond-studded  gold  etui^ 
the  gift  of  the  Kaiser  in  old  days. 

"  Nay,  not  without  the  White  Chief,"  said  Bald  Coyote  ; 
and  he  seized  the  reins  of  Four  Hair-Brushes,  to  lead  him 
from  that  stricken  field. 

"  Vous  etes  trop  vieux  jeu,  mon  ami,"  murmured  Four 
Hair-Brushes,  "je  ne  suis  ni  Edouard  II.,  ni  Charles 
Edouard  k  Culloden.  Quatre-brosses  meurt,  mais  il  ne  se 
rend  pas." 

The  Indian  released  his  hold,  baffled  by  the  erudition 
and  the  calm  courage  of  his  captain. 

"  I  make  tracks,"  he  said ;  and,  swinging  round  so  that 
his  horse  concealed  his  body,  he  galloped  down  the  bluff, 
and  through  the  American  cavalry,  scattering  death  from 
the  arrows  which  he  loosed  under  his  horse's  neck. 

Four  Hair-Brushes  was  alone. 

Unarmed,  as  ever,  he  sat,  save  for  the  hunting-whip  in 
his  right  hand. 


I02  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

"  Scalp  him  ! "  yelled  the  Friendly  Crows. 

"Nay,  take  him  alive:  a  seemlier  knight  never  backed 
steed  !  "  cried  the  gallant  Americans. 

From  their  midst  rode  a  courteous  cavalier,  Captain  John 
Barry,  the  scholar,  the  hero  of  sword  and  pen. 

"  Yield  thee.  Sir  Knight ! "  he  said,  doffing  his  kepi  in 
martial  courtesy. 

Four  Hair-Brushes  replied  to  his  salute,  and  was  opening 
his  curved  and  delicate  lips  to  speak,  when  a  chance  bullet 
struck  him  full  in  the  breast.  He  threw  up  his  arms,  reeled, 
and  fell.  The  gallant  American,  leaping  from  saddle  to 
ground,  rushed  to  raise  his  head. 

Through  the  war-paint  he  recognised  him. 

"  Great  Heaven  !  "  he  cried,  "  it  is " 

"  Hush  !  "  whispered  Four  Hair-Brushes,  with  a  weary 
smile  :  "  let  Annesley  de  Vere  of  the  Blues  die  unnamed. 
Tell  them  that  I  fell  in  harness." 

He  did,  indeed.  Under  his  feathered  and  painted  cloak 
Barry  found  that  Annesley,  ever  careful  of  his  figure,  ever 
loyal  in  love,  the  last  of  the  Dandies,  yet  wore  the  corset 
of  Madame  de  Telliere.     It  was  wet  with  his  life-blood. 

"  So  dies,"  said  Barry,  "  the  last  English  gentleman." 


THACKERAY. 

"  T  THOUGHT  how  some  people's  towering  intellects 
JL  and  splendid  cultivated  geniuses  rise  upon  simple 
beautiful  foundations  hidden  out  of  sight."  Thus,  in  his 
Letters  to  Mrs.  Brookfield,  Mr.  Thackeray  wrote,  after  visit- 
ing the  crypt  of  Canterbury  Cathedral,  with  its  "  charming, 
harmonious,  powerful  combination  of  arches  and  shafts, 
beautiful  whichever  way  you  see  them  developed,  like 
a  fine  music."  The  simile  applies  to  his  own  character 
and  genius,  to  his  own  and  perhaps  to  that  of  most  great 
authors,  whose  works  are  our  pleasure  and  comfort  in  this 
troublesome  world.  There  are  critics  who  profess  a  desire 
to  hear  nothing,  or  as  little  as  may  be,  of  thQ  lives  of  great 
artists,  whether  their,  instrument  of  art  was  the  pen,  or  the 
brush,  or  the  chisel,  or  the  strings  and  reeds  of  music. 
With  those  critics  perhaps  most  of  us  agree,  when  we  read 
books  that  gossip  about  Shelley,  or  Coleridge,  or  Byron. 
"  Give  us  their  poetry,"  wc  say,  "  and  leave  their  characters 
alone :  we  do  not  want  tattle  about  Claire  and  chatter  about 
Harriet ;  we  want  to  be  happy  with  *  The  Skylark  '  or  '  The 
Cloud.'"  Possibly  this  instinct  is  correct,  where  such  a 
poet  as  Shelley  is  concerned,  whose  life,  like  his  poetry,  was 
as  "  the  life  of  winds  and  tides, '  whose  genius,  unlike  the 
skylark's,  was  more  true  to  the  point  of  heaven  than  the 


I04  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

point  of  home.  But  reflection  shows  us  that  on  the  whole, 
as  Mr.  Thackeray  says,  a  man's  genius  must  be  builded 
on  the  foundations  of  his  character.  Where  that  genius 
deals  with  the  mingled  stuff  of  human  life — sorrow,  desire, 
love,  hatred,  kindness,  meanness — then  the  foundation  of 
character  is  especially  important.  People  are  sometimes 
glad  that  we  know  so  little  of  Shakespeare  the  man;  yet 
who  can  doubt  that  a  true  revelation  of  his  character 
would  be  not  less  worthy,  noble  and  charming  than  the 
general  eifect  of  his  poemsj*  In  him,  it  is  certain,  we 
should  always  find  an  example  of  nobility,  of  generosity, 
of  charity  and  kindness  and  self-forgetfulness.  Indeed, 
we  find  these  qualities,  as  a  rule,  in  the  biographies  of  the 
great  sympathetic  poets  and  men  of  genius  of  the  pen — I 
do  not  say  in  the  lives  of  rebels  of  genius,  '  meteoric 
poets  "  like  Byron.  The  same  basis,  the  same  foundations 
of  rectitude,  of  honour,  of  goodness,  of  melancholy,  and  of 
mirth,  underlie  the  art  of  Moliere,  of  Scott,  of  Fielding, 
and  as  his  correspondence  shows,  of  Thackeray. 

It  seems  probable  that  a  complete  biography  of  Thacke- 
ray will  never  be  written.  It  was  his  wish  to  live  in  his 
works  alone  :  that  wish  his  descendants  respect ;  and  we 
must  probably  regard  the  Letters  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brook- 
field  as  the  last  private  and  authentic  record  of  the  man 
which  will  be  given,  at  least  to  this  generation.  In  these 
Letters  all  sympathetic  readers  will  find  the  man  they  have 
long  known  from  his  writings — the  man  with  a  heart  so 
tender  that  the  world  often  drove  him  back  into  a  bitter- 
ness of  opposition,  into  an  assumed  hardness  and  defensive 
cynicism.  There  are  readers  so  unluckily  constituted  that 
they  can  see  nothing  in  Thackeray  but  this  bitterness,  this 


THACKERAY.  103 

cruel  sense  of  meanness  and  power  of  analysing  shabby 
emotions,  sneaking  vanities,  contemptible  ambitions.  All 
of  us  must  often  feel  with  regret  that  he  allowed  himself  to 
be  made  too  unhappy  by  the  spectacle  of  failings  so  common 
in  the  world  he  knew  best,  that  he  dwelt  on  them  too  long 
and  lashed  them  too  complacently.  One  hopes  never  to 
read  "Lovel  the  Widower"  again,  and  one  gladly  skips 
some  of  the  speeches  of  the  Old  Campaigner  in  "  The 
Newcomes."  They  are  terrible,  but  not  more  terrible  than 
life.  Yet  it  is  hard  to  understand  how  Mr.  Ruskin,  for 
example,  can  let  such  scenes  and  characters  hide  from  his 
view  the  kindness,  gentleness,  and  pity  of  Thackeray's 
nature.  The  Letters  must  open  all  eyes  that  are  not 
wilfully  closed,  and  should  at  last  overcome  every 
prejudice. 

In  the  Letters  we  see  a  man  literally  hungering  and 
thirsting  after  affection,  after  love — a  man  cut  off  by  a  cruel 
stroke  of  fate  from  his  natural  solace,  from  the  centre  of  a 
home. 

"  God  look  from  me  a  lady  dear," 
he  says,  in  the  most  touching  medley  of  doggerel  and 
poetry,  made  "  instead  of  writing  my  Punch  this  morning." 
Losing  "  a  lady  dear,"  he  takes  refuge  as  he  may,  he  finds 
comfort  as  he  can,  in  all  the  affections  within  his  reach,  in 
the  society  of  an  old  college  friend  and  of  his  wife,  in  the 
love  of  all  children,  beginning  with  his  own ;  in  a  generous 
liking  for  all  good  work  and  for  all  good  fellows. 

Did  any  man  of  letters  except  Scott  ever  write  of  his 
rivals  as  Thackeray  wrote  of  Dickens?  Artists  are  a 
jealous  race.  "  Potter  hates  potter,  and  poet  hates  poet," 
as  Hesiod  said  so  long  ago.      This  jealousy  is  not  mere 


io6  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

envy,  it  is  really  a  strong  sense  of  how  things  ought  to  be 
done,  in  any  art,  touched  with  a  natural  preference  for  a 
man's  own  way  of  doing  them.  Now,  what  could  be 
more  unlike  than  the  "  ways  "  of  Dickens  and  Thackeray  ? 
The  subjects  chosen  by  these  great  authors  are  not  more 
diverse  than  their  styles.  Thackeray  writes  like  a  scholar, 
not  in  the  narrow  sense,  but  rather  as  a  student  and  a 
master  of  all  the  refinements  and  resources  of  language. 
Dickens  copies  the  chaff  of  the  street,  or  he  roams  into 
melodramatics,  "  drops  into  poetry  " — blank  verse  at  least — 
and  touches  all  with  peculiarities,  we  might  say  mannerisms, 
of  his  own.  I  have  often  thought,  and  even  tried  to  act 
on  the  thought,  that  some  amusing  imaginary  letters  might 
be  written,  from  characters  of  Dickens  about  characters  of 
Thackeray,  from  characters  of  Thackeray  about  characters 
of  Dickens.  They  might  be  supposed  to  meet  each  other 
in  society,  and  describe  each  other.  Can  you  not  fancy 
Captain  Costigan  on  Dick  Swiveller,  Blanche  Amory  on 
Agnes,  Pen  on  David  Copperfield,  and  that  "  tiger " 
Steerforth  ?  What  would  the  family  solicitor  of  "  The 
Newcomes  "  have  to  say  of  Mr.  Tulkinghorn  ?  How  would 
George  Warrington  appreciate  Mr.  Pickwick  ?  Yes,  the  two 
great  novelists  were  as  opposed  as  two  men  could  be — in 
manner,  in  style,  in  knowledge  of  books,  and  of  the  world. 
And  yet  how  admirably  Thackeray  writes  about  Dickens, 
in  his  letters  as  in  his  books !  How  he  delights  in  him  ! 
How  manly  is  that  emulation  which  enables  an  author  to 
see  all  the  points  in  his  rival,  and  not  to  carp  at  them, 
but  to  praise,  and  be  stimulated  to  keener  effort ! 

Consider  this  passage.      "  Have  you  read  Dickens  ?  O  ! 
it  is  charming !     Brave  Dickens  !      It  has  some  of  his  very 


THACKERAY.  107 

prettiest  touches — ^those  inimitable  Dickens  touches  which 
make  such  a  great  man  of  him,  and  the  reading  of  the  book 
has  done  another  author  a  great  deal  of  good." 

Thackeray  is  just  as  generous,  and  perhaps  more  critical, 
in  writing  of  Kingsley.  "  A  fine,  honest,  go-a-head  fellow, 
who  charges  a  subject  heartily,  impetuously,  with  the 
greatest  courage  and  simplicity  ;  but  with  narrow  eyes  (his 
are  extraordinarily  brave,  blue  and  honest),  and  with  little 
knowledge  of  the  world,  I  think.  But  he  is  superior  to  us 
worldlings  in  many  ways,  and  I  wish  I  had  some  of  his 
honest  pluck." 

I  have  often  wished  that  great  authors,  when  their  days 
of  creation  were  over,  when  "  their  minds  grow  grey  and 
bald,"  would  condescend  to  tell  us  the  history  of  their 
books.  Sir  Walter  Scott  did  something  of  this  kind  in 
the  prefaces  to  the  last  edition  of  the  Waverley  Novels 
published  during  his  life.  What  can  be  more  interesting 
than  his  account,  in  the  introduction  to  the  "  Fortunes  of 
Nigel,"  of  how  he  worked,  how  he  planned,  and  found  all 
his  plots  and  plans  overridden  by  the  demon  at  the  end  of 
his  pen  !  But  Sir  Walter  was  failing  when  he  began  those 
literary  confessions ;  good  as  they  are,  he  came  to  them  too 
late.  Yet  these  are  not  confessions  which  an  author  can 
make  early.  The  pagan  Aztecs  only  confessed  once  in  a 
lifetime — in  old  age,  when  they  had  fewer  temptations  to 
fall  to  their  old  loves :  then  they  made  a  clean  breast  of  it 
once  for  all.  So  it  might  be  with  an  author.  While  he  is 
in  his  creative  vigour,  we  want  to  hear  about  his  fancied 
persons,  about  Pendennis,  Beatrix,  Becky,  not  about  him- 
self, and  how  he  invented  them.  But  when  he  has  passed 
his  best,  then  it  is  he  who  becomes  of  interest ;  it  is  about 


io8  £SSAVS  IN  LITTLE. 

himself  that  we  wish  him  to  speak,  as  far  as  he  modestly 
may.  Who  would  not  give  "  Lovel  the  Widower "  and 
"  Philip  "  for  some  autobiographical  and  literary  prefaces  to 
the  older  novels  ?  They  need  not  have  been  more  egotistic 
than  the  "  Roundabout  Papers."  They  would  have  had 
far  more  charm.  Some  things  cannot  be  confessed.  We 
do  not  ask  who  was  the  original  Sir  Pitt  Crawley,  or  the 
original  Blanche  Amory.  But  we  might  learn  in  what 
mood,  in  what  circumstances  the  author  wrote  this  passage 
or  that. 

The  Letters  contain  a  few  notes  of  this  kind,  a  few 
literary  confessions.  We  hear  that  Emmy  Sedley  was 
partly  suggested  by  Mrs.  Brookfield,  partly  by  Thackeray's 
mother,  much  by  his  own  wife.  There  scarce  seems  room 
for  so  many  elements  in.  Emmy's  personality.  For  some 
reason  ladies  love  her  not,  nor  do  men  adore  her.  I  have 
been  her  faithful  knight  ever  since  I  was  ten  years  old  and 
read  "  Vanity  Fair  "  somewhat  stealthily.  Why  does  one 
like  her  except  because  she  is  such  a  thorough  woman  ?  She 
is  not  clever,  she  is  not  very  beautiful,  she  is  unhappy,  and 
she  can  be  jealous.  One  pities  her,  and  that  is  akin  to  a 
more  tender  sentiment ;  one  pities  her  while  she  sits  in  the 
corner,  and  Becky's  green  eyes  flatter  her  oaf  of  a  husband  ; 
one  pities  her  in  the  poverty  of  her  father's  house,  in  the 
famous  battle  over  Daffy's  Elixir,  in  the  separation  from  the 
younger  George.  You  begin  to  wish  some  great  joy  to 
come  to  her :  it  does  not  come  unalloyed ;  you  know  that 
Dobbin  had  bad  quarters  of  an  hour  with  this  lady,  and  had 
to  disguise  a  little  of  his  tenderness  for  his  own  daughter. 
Yes,  Emmy  is  more  complex  than  she  seems,  and  perhaps 
it  needed  three  ladies  to  contribute  the  various  elements 


THACKERAY.  109 

of  her  person  and  her  character.  One  of  them,  the  jealous 
one,  lent  a  touch  to  Helen  Pendennis,  to  Laura,  to  Lady 
Castlewood.  Probably  this  may  be  the  reason  why  some 
persons  dislike  Thackeray  so.  His  very  best  women  are 
not  angels.*  Are  the  very  best  women  angels  ?  It  is  a 
pious  opinion — that  borders  on  heresy. 

When  the  Letters  began  to  be  written,  in  1847,  Thackeray 
had  his  worst  years,  in  a  worldly  sense,  behind  him.  They 
were  past :  the  times  when  he  wrote  in  Galignani  for  ten 
francs  a  day.  Has  any  literary  ghoul  disinterred  his  old 
ten-franc  articles  in  Galignani}  The  time  of  "  Barry 
Lyndon,"  too,  was  over.  He  says  nothing  of  that  master- 
piece, and  only  a  word  about  "The  Great  Hoggarty 
Diamond."  "  I  have  been  re-reading  it.  Upon  my  word 
and  honour,  if  it  doesn't  make  you  cry,  I  shall  have  a  mean 
opinion  of  you.  It  was  written  at  a  time  of  great  affliction, 
when  my  heart  was  very  soft  and  humble.  Amen.  Ich 
habe  auch  viel  geliebt."  Of  "  Pendennis,"  as  it  goes  on, 
he  writes  that  it  is  "  awfully  stupid,"  which  has  not  been  the 
verdict  of  the  ages.  He  picks  up  materials  as  he  passes. 
He  dines  with  some  officers,  and  perhaps  he  stations  them 

at  Chatteris.     He  meets   Miss   G ,   and  her  converse 

suggests  a  love  passage  between  Pen  and  Blanche.  Why 
did  he  dislike  fair  women  so?  It  runs  all  through  his 
novels.  Becky  is  fair.  Blanche  is  fciir.  Outside  the  old 
yellow  covers  of  "  Pendennis,"  you  see  the  blonde  mermaid, 
•'  amusing,  and  clever,  and  depraved,"  dragging  the  lover 
to  the  sea,  and  the  nut-brown  maid  holding  him  back. 
Angelina,  of  the  "Kose  and  the  Ring,"  is  the  Becky  of 

•  For  Helen  Pendennis,  see  the  "  Letters,"  p.  97. 


no  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

childhood ;  she  is  fair,  and  the  good  Rosalba  is  drune.  In 
writing  **  Pendennis  "  he  had  a  singular  experience.  He 
looked  over  his  own  "back  numbers,"  and  found  "a 
passage  which  I  had  utterly  forgotten  as  if  I  had  never 
read  or  written  it."  In  Lockhart's  "  Life  of  Scott,"  James 
Ballantyne  says  that  "  when  the  '  Bride  of  Lammermoor ' 
was  first  put  into  his  hands  in  a  complete  shape,  he  did  not 
recollect  one  single  incident,  character,  or  conversation  it 
contained."  That  is  to  say,  he  remembered  nothing  of  his 
own  invention,  though  his  memory  of  the  traditional  parts 
was  as  clear  as  ever.  Ballantyne  remarks,  "  The  history  of 
the  human  mind  contains  nothing  more  wonderful. '  The 
experience  of  Thackeray  is  a  parallel  to  that  of  Scott. 
"  Pendennis,"  it  must  be  noted,  was  interrupted  by  a 
severe  illness,  and  "  The  Bride  of"  Lammermoor "  was 
dictated  by  Sir  Walter  when  in  great  physical  pain.  On 
one  occasion  Thackeray  "lit  upon  a  very  stupid  part  of 
'  Pendennis,'  I  am  sorry  to  say ;  and  yet  how  well  written 
it  is !  What  a  shame  the  author  don't  write  a  complete 
good  story !  Will  he  die  before  doing  so  ?  or  come  back 
from  America  and  do  it  ?  " 

Did  he  ever  write  "  a  complete,  good  story  "  ?  Did  any 
one  ever  do  such  a  thing  as  write  a  three-volume  novel, 
or  a  novel  of  equal  length,  which  was  "  a  complete,  good 
story  "  ?  Probably  not ;  or  if  any  mortal  ever  succeeded 
in  the  task,  it  was  the  great  Alexander  Dumas.  "The 
Three  Musketeers,"  I  take  leave  to  think,  and  "Twenty 
Years  After,"  are  complete  good  stories,  good  from  beginning 
to  end,  stories  from  beginning  to  end  without  a  break,  with- 
out needless*  episode.  Perhaps  one  may  say  as  much  for 
"  Old  Mortality,"  and  for  "  Quentin  Durward."     But  Scott 


THACKERAY.  in 

and  Dumas  were  born  story-tellers;  narrative  was  the 
essence  of  their  genius  at  its  best ;  the  current  of  romance 
rolls  fleetly  on,  bearing  with  it  persons  and  events,  mirroring 
scenes,  but  never  ceasing  to  be  the  main  thing — the  central 
interest.  Perhaps  narrative  like  this  is  the  chief  success 
of  the  novelist.  He  is  triumphant  when  he  carries  us  on, 
as  Wolf,  the  famous  critic,  was  carried  on  by  the  tide  of 
the  Iliad,  "in  that  pure  and  rapid  current  of  action." 
Nobody  would  claim  this  especial  merit  for  Thackeray. 
He  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  novelists ;  he  displays  human 
nature  and  human  conduct  so  that  we  forget  ourselves 
in  his  persons,  but  he  does  not  make  us  forget  ourselves 
in  their  fortunes.  Whether  Clive  does  or  does  not  marry 
Ethel,  or  Esmond,  Beatrix,  does  not  very  greatly  excite 
our  curiosity.  We  cannot  ring  the  bells  for  Clive's  second 
wedding  as  the  villagers  celebrated  the  bridal  of  Pamela. 
It  is  the  development  of  character,  it  is  the  author's  com- 
ments, it  is  his  own  personality  and  his  unmatched  and 
inimitable  style,  that  win  our  admiration  and  affection. 
We  can  take  up  "  Vanity  Fair,"  or  "  Pendennis,"  or  "  The 
Newcomes,"  just  where  the  book  opens  by  chance,  and 
read  them  with  delight,  as  we  may  read  Montaigne.  When 
one  says  one  can  take  up  a  book  anywhere,  it  generally 
means  that  one  can  also  lay  it  down  anywhere.  But  it  is 
not  so  with  Thackeray.  Whenever  we  meet  him  he  holds 
us  with  his  charm,  his  humour,  his  eloquence,  his  tender- 
ness. If  he  has  not,  in  the  highest  degree,  the  narrative 
power,  he  does  possess,  in  a  degree  perhaps  beyond  any 
other  writer  of  English,  that  kind  of  poetic  quality  which 
is  not  incompatible  with  prose  writing. 

A  great  deal  has  been  said  about  prose  poetry.     As  a 


112  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

rule,  it  is  very  poor  stuff.  As  prose  it  has  a  tendency 
to  run  into  blank  verse ;  as  poetry  it  is  highly  rhetorical 
and  self-conscious.  It  would  be  invidious  and  might  be 
irritating  to  select  examples  from  modern  masters  of  prose- 
poetry.  They  have  never  been  poets.  But  the  prose  of 
a  poet  like  Milton  may  be,  and  is,  poetical  in  the  true 
sense ;  and  so,  upon  occasions,  was  the  prose  of  Thackeray. 
Some  examples  linger  always  in  the  memory,  and  dwell 
with  their  music  in  the  hearing.  One  I  have  quoted  else- 
where; the  passage  in  "The  Newcomes"  where  Clive,  at 
the  lecture  on  the  Poetry  of  the  Domestic  Affections,  given 
by  Sir  Barnes  Newcome,  sees  Ethel,  whom  he  has  lost. 

"And  the  past,  and  its  dear  histories,  and  youth  and 
its  hopes  and  passions,  and  tones  and  looks,  for  ever 
echoing  in  the  heart  and  present  in  the  memory — those, 
no  doubt,  poor  Clive  saw  and  heard  as  he  looked  across 
the  great  gulf  of  time  and  parting  and  grief,  and  beheld 
the  woman  he  had  loved  for  many  years."  "The  great 
gulf  of  time,  and  parting,  and  grief," — some  of  us  are  on 
the  farther  side  of  it,  and  our  old  selves,  and  our  old 
happiness,  and  our  old  affections  beyond,  grow  near,  grow 
clear,  now  and  then,  at  the  sight  of  a  face  met  by  chance 
in  the  world,  at  the  chance  sound  of  a  voice.  Such  are 
human  fortunes,  and  human  sorrows;  not  the  worst,  not 
the  greatest,  for  these  old  loves  do  not  die — they  live  in 
exile,  and  are  the  better  parts  of  our  souls.  Not  the 
greatest,  nor  the  worst  of  sorrows,  for  shame  is  worse,  and 
hopeless  hunger,  and  a  life  all  of  barren  toil  without  dis- 
tractions, without  joy,  must  be  far  worse.  But  of  those 
myriad  tragedies  of  the  life  of  the  poor,  Thackeray  does 
not  write.     How  far  he  was  aware  of  them,  how  deeply  he 


THACKERAY.  113 

felt  them,  we  are  not  informed.  His  highest  tragedy  is 
that  of  the  hunger  of  the  heart;  his  most  noble  prose 
sounds  in  that  meeting  of  Harry  Esmond  with  Lady 
Castlewood,  in  the  immortal  speech  which  has  the  burden, 
"bringing  your  sheaves  with  you !"  All  that  scene  appears 
to  me  no  less  unique,  no  less  unsurpassable,  no  less  perfect, 
than  the  "  Ode  to  the  Nightingale  "  of  Keats,  or  the  Lycidas 
of  Milton.  It  were  superfluous  to  linger  over  the  humour 
of  Thackeray.  Only  Shakespeare  and  Dickens  have  graced 
the  language  with  so  many  happy  memories  of  queer,  pleasant 
people,  with  so  many  quaint  phrases,  each  of  which  has 
a  kind  of  freemasonry,  and  when  uttered,  or  recalled,  makes 
all  friends  of  Thackeray  into  family  friends  of  each  other. 
The  sayings  of  Mr.  Harry  Foker,  of  Captain  Costigan,  of 
Gumbo,  are  all  like  old  dear  family  phrases,  they  live 
imperishable  and  always  new,  like  the  words  of  Sir  John, 
the  fat  knight,  or  of  Sancho  Panza,  or  of  Dick  Swiveller, 
or  that  other  Sancho,  Sam  Wellcr.  They  have  that  Shake- 
spearian gift  of  being  ever  appropriate,  and  undyingly  fresh. 

These  are  among  the  graces  of  Thackeray,  these  and  that 
inimitable  style,  which  always  tempts  and  always  baffles 
the  admiring  and  despairing  copyist.  Where  did  he  find 
the  trick  of  it,  of  the  words  which  are  invariably  the  best 
words,  and  invariably  fall  exactly  in  the  best  places? 
"  The  best  words  in  the  best  places,"  is  part  of  Coleridge's 
definition  of  poetry ;  it  is  also  the  essence  of  Thackeray's 
prose.  In  these  Letters  to  Mrs.  Brookfield  the  style  is 
precisely  the  style  of  the  novels  and  essays.  The  style, 
with  Thackeray,  was  the  man.  He  could  not  write  other- 
wise. But  probably,  to  the  last,  this  perfection  was  not 
mechanical,  was  not  attained  without  labour  and  care.     In 

w,L.-i.  8 


114  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Dr.  John  Brown's  works,  in  his  essay  on  Thackeray,  there 
is  an  example  of  a  proof-sheet  on  which  the  master  has 
made  corrections,  and  those  corrections  bring  the  passage 
up  to  his  accustomed  level,  to  the  originality  of  his  rhythm. 
Here  is  the  piece  : — 

"  Another  Finis,  another  slice  of  life  which  Tempus  edax 
has  devoured !  And  I  may  have  to  write  the  word  once 
or  twice,  perhaps,  and  then  an  end  of  Ends.  Fi44.e— i*-0¥ef 
ar-d-  Inf.r.itc  beginning  Oh,  the  troubles,  the  cares,  the 
enmiiy  -the  complicatior.c,  the  repetitions,  the  old  conversa- 
tions over  and  over  again,  and  here  and  there  all  the 
delightful  passages,  the  dear,  the  brief,  the  forever-remem- 
bered ! 

" Aftd  t-k€H  A  few  chapters  more,  and  then  the  last,  and 
behold  Finis  itself  coming  to  an  end,  and  the  Infinite 
beginning." 

"  How  like  music  this,"  writes  Dr.  John  Brown — "  like 
one  trying  the  same  air  in  different  ways,  as  it  were, 
searching  out  and  sounding  all  its  depths  !  "  The  words 
were  almost  the  last  that  Thackeray  wrote,  perhaps  the  very 
last.  They  reply,  as  it  were,  to  other  words  which  he  had 
written  long  before  to  Mrs.  Brookfield. 

"I  don't. pity  anybody  who  leaves  the  world;  not  even 
a  fair  young  girl  in  her  prime ;  I  pity  those  remaining.  On 
her  journey,  if  it  pleases  God  to  send  her,  depend  on  it 
there's  no  cause  for  grief,  that's  but  an  earthly  condition. 
Out  of  our  stormy  life,  and  brought  nearer  the  Divine  light 
and  warmth,  there  must  be  a  serene  climate.  Can't  you 
fancy  sailing  into  the  calm  ?  " 

Ah !  nowhere  else  shall  we  find  the  Golden  Bride 
"passionless  bride,  divine  Tranquillity." 


I  THACKERAY.  iij 

As  human  nature  persistently  demands  a  moral,  and,  as, 
to  say  truth,  Thackeray  was  constantly  meeting  the  demand, 
what  is  the  lesson  of  his  life  and  his  writings  ?  So  people 
may  ask,  and  yet  how  futile  is  the  answer !  Life  has  a 
different  meaning,  a  different  riddle,  a  different  reply  for 
each  of  us.  There  is  not  one  sphinx,  but  many  sphinxes 
— as  many  as  there  are  women  and  men.  We  mast  all 
answer  for  ourselves.  Pascal  has  one  answer,  "  Believe  !  " 
Moliere  has  another,  "  Observe  !  "  Thackeray's  answer  is, 
"Be  good  and  enjoy!"  but  a  melancholy  enjoyment  was 
his.     Dr.  John  Brown  says  : 

"  His  persistent  state,  especially  for  the  later  half  of  his 
life,  was  profoundly  morne,  there  is  no  other  word  for  it. 
This  arose  in  part  from  temperament,  from  a  quick  sense 
of  the  httleness  and  wretchedness  of  mankind.  .  .  .  This 
feeling,  acting  on  a  harsh  and  savage  nature,  ended  in  the 
sceva  indignatio  of  Swift ;  acting  on  the  kindly  and  sensitive 
nature  of  Mr.  Thackeray,  it  led  only  to  compassionate 
sadness." 

A  great  part  of  his  life,  and  most  of  his  happiness,  lay 
in  love.  "  Ich  habe  auch  viel  geliebt,"  he  says,  and  it  is  a 
hazardous  kind  of  happiness  that  attends  great  affection. 
Your  capital  is  always  at  the  mercy  of  failures,  of  death, 
of  jealousy,  of  estrangement.  But  he  had  so  much  love  to 
give  that  he  could  not  but  trust  those  perilous  investments. 

Other  troubles  he  had  that  may  have  been  diversions 
from  those.  He  did  not  always  keep  that  manly  common 
sense  in  regard  to  criticism,  which  he  shows  in  a  letter  to 
Mrs.  Brookfield.  "  Did  you  read  the  Spectator's  sarcastic 
notice  of  '  Vanity  Fair  '  ?  I  don't  think  it  is  just,  but  think 
Kintoul  (Rintoul  ?)  is  a  very  honest  man,  and  rather  inclined 


Ii6  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

to  deal  severely  wiih  his  private  friends  lest  he  should  fall 
into  the  other  extreme  :  to  be  sure  he  keeps  out  of  it,  I 
mean  the  other  extreme,  very  well." 

That  is  the  way  to  take  unfavourable  criticisms — not  to 
go  declaring  that  a  man  is  your  enemy  because  he  does 
not  like  your  book,  your  ballads,  your  idyls,  your  sermons, 
what  you  please.  Why  cannot  people  keep  literature  and 
liking  apart  ?  Am  I  bound  to  think  Jones  a  bad  citizen, 
a  bad  man,  a  bad  householder,  because  his  poetry  leaves 
me  cold  ?  Need  he  regard  me  as  a  malevolent  green-eyed 
monster,  because  I  don't  want  to  read  him  ?  Thackeray 
was  not  always  true  in  his  later  years  to  these  excellent 
principles.  He  was  troubled  about  trifles  of  criticisms 
and  gossip,  bagatelles  not  worth  noticing,  still  less  worth 
remembering  and  recording.  Do  not  let  us  record  them, 
then. 

We  cannot  expect  for  Thackeray,  we  cannot  even  desire 
for  him,  a  popularity  like  that  of  Dickens.  If  ever  any 
man  wrote  for  the  people,  it  was  Dickens.  Where  can  we 
find  such  a  benefactor,  and  who  has  lightened  so  many 
lives  with  "such  merriment  as  he  ?  But  Thackeray  wrote, 
like  the  mass  of  authors,  for  the  literary  class — for  all  who 
have  the  sense  of  style,  the  delight  in  the  best  language. 
He  will  endure  while  English  literature  endures,  while 
English  civilisation  lasts.  We  cannot  expect  all  the  world 
to  share  our  affection  for  this  humourist  whose  mirth  springs 
from  his  melancholy.  His  religion,  his  education,  his  life 
in  this  unsatisfying  world,  are  not  the  life,  the  education, 
the  religion  of  the  great  majority  of  human  kind.  He 
cannot  reach  so  many  ears  and  hearts  as  Shakespeare  or 
Dickens,  and  some  of  those  whom  he  reaches  will  always 


THACKERAY.  mj 

and  inevitably  misjudge  him.  Mais  dest  mon  homme,  one 
may  say,  as  La  Fontaine  said  of  Moliere.  Of  modern  writers, 
putting  Scott  aside,  he  is  to  me  the  most  friendly  and 
sympathetic.  Great  genius  as  he  was,  he  was  also  a  pen 
man,  a  journalist ;  and  journalists  and  penmen  will  always 
look  to  him  as  their  big  brother,  the  man  in  their  own  line 
of  whom  they  are  proudest.  As  devout  Catholics  did  not 
always  worship  the  greatest  saints,  but  the  friendliest  saints, 
their  own,  so  we  scribes  burn  our  cheap  incense  to  St. 
William  Makepeace.  He  could  do  all  that  any  of  us  could 
do,  and  he  did  it  infinitely  better.  A  piece  of  verse  for 
Punch,  a  paragraph,  a  caricature,  were  not  beneath  the 
dignity  of  the  author  of  "  Esmond."  He  had  the  kindness 
and  helpfulness  which  I,  for  one,  have  never  met  a  jour- 
nalist who  lacked.  He  was  a  good  Englishman ;  the  boy 
within  him  never  died ;  he  loved  children,  and  boys,  and  a 
little  slang,  and  a  boxing  match.  If  he  had  failings,  who 
knew  them  better  than  he  ?  How  often  he  is  at  once  the 
boy  at  the  swishing  block  and  Dr.  Birch  who  does  not  spare 
the  rod !  Let  us  believe  with  that  beloved  physician,  our 
old  friend  Dr.  John  Brown,  that  "  Mr.  Thackeray  was  much 
greater,  much  nobler  than  his  works,  great  and  noble  as 
they  are."  Let  us  part  with  him,  remembering  his  own 
words : 

*  Come  wealth  or  want,  come  good  or  ill. 
Let  young  and  old  accept  their  part. 
And  bow  before  the  awful  Will, 
And  bear  it  with  an  honest  heart." 


DICKENS. 

"  T  CANNOT  read  Dickens ! "  How  many  people 
X  make  this  confession,  with  a  front  of  brass,  and 
do  not  seem  to  know  how  poor  a  figure  they  cut !  George 
Eliot  says  that  a  difference  of  taste  in  jokes  is  a  great  cause 
of  domestic  discomfort.  A  difference  of  taste  in  books, 
when  it  is  decided  and  vigorous,  breaks  many  a  possible 
friendship,  and  nips  many  a  young  liking  in  the  bud.  I 
would  not  willingly  seem  intolerant.  A  man  may  not  like 
Sophocles,  may  speak  disrespectfully  of  Virgil,  and  even 
sneer  at  Herodotus,  and  yet  may  be  endured.  But  he  or 
she  (it  is  usually  she)  who  contemns  Scott,  and  "  cannot 
read  Dickens,"  is  a  person  with  whom  I  would  fain  have 
no  further  converse.  If  she  be  a  lady,  and  if  one  meets  her 
at  dinner,  she  must  of  course  be  borne  with,  and  "  suffered 
gladly."  But  she  has  dug  a  gulf  that  nothing  can  bridge.; 
she  may  be  fair,  clever  and  popular,  but  she  is  Anathema. 
I  feel  towards  her  (or  him  if  he  wears  a  beard)  as  Bucklaw 
did  towards  the  person  who  should  make  inquiries  about 
that  bridal  night  of  Lammermoor. 

But  this  admission  does  not  mean  that  one  is  sealed 
of  the  tribe  of  Charles — that  one  is  a  Dickensite  pure  and 
simple,  convinced  and  devout — any  more  than  Mr.  Matthew 


DICKENS.  119 

Arnold  was  a  Wordsworthian.  Dickens  has  many  such 
worshippers,  especially  (and  this  is  an  argument  in  favour 
of  the  faith)  among  those  who  knew  him  in  his  life.  He 
must  have  had  a  wonderful  charm ;  for  his  friends  in  life 
are  his  literary  partisans,  his  uncompromising  partisans, 
even  to  this  day.  They  will  have  no  half-hearted  admiration, 
and  scout  him  who  tries  to  speak  of  Dickens  as  of  an  artist 
not  flawless,  no  less  than  they  scorn  him  who  cannot  read 
Dickens  at  all.  At  one  time  this  honourable  enthusiasm 
(as  among  the  VVordsworthians)  took  the  shape  of  "  endless 
imitation."  That  is  over;  only  here  and  there  is  an 
imitator  of  the  master  left  in  the  land.  All  his  own  genius 
was  needed  to  carry  his  mannerisms ;  the  mannerisms 
without  the  genius  were  an  armour  that  no  devoted  David 
had  proved,  that  none  could  wear  with  success. 

Of  all  great  writers  since  Scott,  Dickens  is  probably  the 
man  to  whom  the  world  owes  most  gratitude.  No  other 
has  caused  so  many  sad  hearts  to  be  lifted  up  in  laughter ; 
no  other  has  added  so  much  mirth  to  the  toilsome  and 
perplexed  life  of  men,  of  poor  and  rich,  of  learned  and 
unlearned.  "A  vast  hope  has  passed  across  the  world," 
says  Alfred  de  Musset ;  we  may  say  that  with  Dickens  a 
happy  smile,  a  joyous  laugh,  went  round  this  earth.  To 
have  made  us  laugh  so  frequently,  so  inextinguishably,  so 
kindly — that  is  his  great  good  deed.  It  will  be  said,  and 
with  a  great  deal  of  truth,  that  he  has  purged  us  with 
pity  and  terror  as  well  as  with  laughter.  But  it  is  becoming 
plain  that  his  command  of  tears  is  less  assivred  than  of  old, 
and  I  cannot  honestly  regret  that  some  of  his  pathos — not 
all,  by  any  means — is  losing  its  charm  and  its  certainty 
of  appeal.     Dickens's  humour  was  rarely  too  obvious ;  it  was 


lao  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

essentially  personal,  original,  quaint,  unexpected,  and  his 
own.  His  pathos  was  not  infrequently  derived  from  sources 
open  to  all  the  world,  and  capable  of  being  drawn  from 
by  very  commonplace  writers.  Little  Nells  and  Dombeys, 
children  unhappy,  overthrown  early  in  the  mc/ee  of  the 
w^orld,  and  dying  among  weeping  readers,  no  longer  affect 
us  as  they  affected  another  generation.  Mrs.  Beecher 
Slowe  and  the  author  of  "  Misunderstood,"  once  made  some 
people  weep  like  anything  by  these  simple  means.  Ouida 
can  do  it ;  plenty  of  people  can  do  it.  Dickens  lives  by 
virtue  of  what  none  but  he  can  do :  by  virtue  of  Sairey 
Gamp,  and  Sam  Weller,  and  Dick  Swiveller,  and  Mr. 
Squeers,  with  a  thousand  other  old  friends,  of  whom  we  can 
never  weary.  No  more  than  Cleopatra's  can  custom  stale 
t^eir  infinite  variety. 

I  do  not  say  that  Dickens*  pathos  is  always  of  the  too 
facile  sort,  which  plays  round  children's  death-beds.  Other 
pathos  he  has,  more  fine  and  not  less  genuine.  It  may  be 
morbid  and  contemptible  to  feel  "a  great  inclination  to  cry" 
over  David  Copperfield's  boyish  infatuation  for  Steerforth  ; 
but  I  feel  it.  Steerforth  was  a  "  tiger," — as  Major  Pendennis 
would  have  said,  a  tiger  with  his  curly  hair  and  his  ambrosial 
whiskers.  But  when  a  little  boy  loses  his  heart  to  a  big 
boy  he  does  not  think  of  this.  Traddles  thought  of  it. 
"  Shame,  J.  Steerforth  !  "  cried  Traddles,  when  Steerforth 
bullied  the  usher.  Traddles  had  not  lost  his  heart,  nor 
set  up  the  big  boy  as  a  god  in  the  shrine  thereof.  But 
boys  do  these  things ;  most  of  us  have  had  our  Steerforths 
— tall,  strong,  handsome,  brave,  good-humoured. .  Far  off 
across  the  years  I  see  the  face  of  such  an  one,  and  remember 
that  emotion  which  is  described  in  "David  Copperfield," 


DICKENS.  121 

chap,  xix.,  towards  the  end  of  the  chapter.  I  don't  know 
any  other  novelist  who  has  touched  this  young  and  abso- 
lutely disinterested  belief  of  a  little  boy  in  a  big  one — 
touched  it  so  kindly  and  seriously,  that  is  :  there  is  a  hint 
of  it  in  «  Dr.  Birch's  School  Days." 

But  Dickens  is  always  excellent  in  his  boys,  of  whom 
he  has  drawn  dozens  of  types — all  capital.  There  is  Tommy 
Traddles,  for  example.  And  how  can  people  say  that 
Dickens  could  not  draw  a  gentleman  ?  The  boy  who 
shouted,  "  Shame,  J.  Steerforth  !  "  was  a  gentleman,  if  one 
may  pretend  to  have  an  opinion  about  a  theme  so  difficult. 
The  Dodger  and  Charley  Bates  are  delightful  boys — 
especially  Bates.  Pip,  in  the  good  old  days,  when  he  was 
the  prowling  boy,  and  fought  Herbert  Pocket,  was  not  less 
attractive;  and  Herbert  himself,  with  his  theory  and  practice 
of  the  art  of  self-defence — could  Nelson  have  been  more 
brave,  or  Shelley  (as  in  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  opinion) 
more  "ineffectual"?  Even  the  boys  at  Dotheboys  Hall 
are  each  of  them  quite  distinct.  Dickens's  boys  are  almost 
as  dear  to  me  as  Thackeray's — as  little  Rawdon  himself. 
There  is  one  exception.  I  cannot  interest  myself  in  Little 
Dombey.  Little  David  Copperfield  is  a  jewel  of  a  boy 
with  a  turn  for  books.  Doubtless  he  is  created  out  of 
Dickens's  memories  of  himself  as  a  child.  That  is  true 
pathos  again,  and  not  overwrought,  when  David  is  sent  to 
Crcaklc's,  and  his  poor  troubled  mother  dare  hardly  say 
farewell  to  him. 

And  this  brings  us  back  to  that  debatable  thing — the 
pathos  of  Dickens — from  which  one  has  been  withdrawn 
by  the  attractions  of  his  boys.  Little  Dombey  s  a  prize 
example  of  his  pathos.     Little  Nell  is  another.    Jeffrey,  of 


122  ESSAYS  IN  UTTLE. 

the  Edinburgh  Review,  who  criticised  "  Marmion "  and 
the  *'  Lady  of  the  Lake "  so  vindictively,  shed  tears  over 
Little  Nell.  It  is  a  matter  of  taste,  or,  as  Science  might 
say,  of  the  lachrymal  glands  as  developed  in  each  indi- 
vidual. But  the  lachrymal  glands  of  this  amateur  are  not 
developed  in  that  direction.  Little  Dombey  and  Little  Nell 
leave  me  with  a  pair  of  dry  eyes.  I  do  not  "  melt  visibly  " 
over  Little  Dombey,  like  the  weak-eyed  young  man  who 
took  out  his  books  and  trunk  to  the  coach.  The  poor  little 
chap  was  feeble  and  feverish,  and  had  dreams  of  trying  to 
stop  a  river  with  his  childish  hands,  or  to  choke  it  with 
sand.  It  may  be  very  good  pathology,  but  I  cannot  see 
that  it  is  at  all  right  pathos.  One  does  not  like  copy  to  be 
made  out  of  the  sufferings  of  children  or  of  animals.  One's 
heart  hardens :  the  object  is  too  manifest,  the  trick  is 
too  easy.  Conceive  a  child  of  Dombey's  age  remarking, 
with  his  latest  breath,  "  Tell  them  that  the  picture  on  the 
stairs  at  school  is  not  Divine  enough  ! "  That  is  not  the 
delirium  of  infancy,  that  is  art-criticism  :  it  is  the  AthencBum 
on  Mr.  Holman  Hunt.  It  is  not  true  to  nature ;  it  is  not 
good  in  art :  it  is  the  kind  of  thing  that  appears  in  Sunday- 
school  books  about  the  virtuous  little  boy  who  died.  There 
is  more  true  pathos  in  many  a  page  of  "  Huckleberry  Finn.' 
Yet  this  is  what  Jeffrey  gushed  over.  "  There  has  been 
nothing  like  the  actual  dying  of  that  sweet  Paul."  So  much 
can  age  enfeeble  the  intellect,  that  he  who  had  known 
Scctt,  and  yet  nibbled  at  his  fame,  descended  to  admiring 
the  feeblest  of  false  sentiment.  As  for  Little  Nell,  who  also 
has  caused  floods  of  tears  to  be  shed,  her  case  is  sufficiently 
illustrated  by  the  picture  in  the  first  edition  ("  Master 
Humphrey's  Clock,"  1840,  p.  210): 


DICKENS.  123 

"  '  When  I  die 
Put  near  me  something  that  has  loved  the  light, 
And  had  the  sky  above  it  always.'     Those 
Were  her  words." 
**  Dear,  gentle,  patient,  noble  Nell  was  dead  I" 

'I'he  pathos  is  about  as  good  as  the  prose,  and  that  is  blank 
verse.  Are  the  words  in  the  former  quotation  in  the  least 
like  anything  that  a  little  girl  would  say?  A  German 
sentimentalist  might  have  said  them ;  Obermann  might 
have  murmured  them  in  his  weaker  moments.  Let  us  try 
a  piece  of  domestic  pathos  by  another  hand.  It  is  the 
dawn  of  AVaterloo. 

*'  Heart-stained  and  shame-stricken,  he  stood  at  the  bed's 
foot,  and  looked  at  the  sleeping  girl.  '  How  dared  he — who 
was  he — to  pray  for  one  so  spotless  !  God  bless  her !  God 
bless  her !  He  came  to  the  bedside,  and  looked  at  the 
hand,  the  little  soft  hand,  lying  asleep,  and  he  bent  over 
the  pillow  noiselessly  towards  the  gentle  pale  face.  Two 
fair  arms  closed  tenderly  round  his  neck  as  he  stooped 
down.  *  I  am  awake,  George,'  the  poor  child  said,  with  a 
sob." 

I  know  I  am  making  enemies  of  a  large  proportion  of 
the  readers  of  this  page.  "  Odious,  sneering  beast ! "  is  the 
quotation  which  they  will  apply,  perhaps  unconscious  of  its 
origin,  to  a  critic  who  is  humble  but  would  fain  be  honest, 
to  a  critic  who  thinks  that  Dickens  has  his  weak  places, 
and  that  his  pathos  is  one  of  these.  It  cannot  be  helped. 
Each  of  us  has  his  author  who  is  a  favourite,  a  friend,  an 
idol,  whose  immaculate  perfection  he  maintains  against 
all  comers.  For  example,  things  are  urged  against  Scott; 
I   receive    them    in  the    attitude  of   the   deaf   adder  of 


124  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

St.  Augustine,  who  stops  one  ear  with  his  tail  and  presses  the 
other  against  the  dust.  The  same  with  Moliere  :  M.  Scherer 
utters  complaints  against  Moliere  !  He  would  not  convince 
me,  even  if  I  were  convinced.  So,  with  regard  to  Dickens, 
the  true  believer  will  not  listen,  he  will  not  be  persuaded. 
But  if  any  one  feels  a  little  shaken,  let  him  try  it  another 
way.  There  is  a  character  in  M.  Alphonse  Daudet's  "  Fro- 
ment  Jeune  et  Rissler  Ain6  " — a  character  who,  people  say, 
is  taken  bodily  from  Dickens.  This  is  Ddsiree  Delobelle, 
the  deformed  girl,  the  daughter  of  un  rate,  a  pretentious 
imbecile  actor.  She  is  poor,  stunted,  laborious,  toiling  at 
a  small  industry;  she  is  in  love,  is  rejected,  she  tries  to 
drown  herself,  she  dies.  The  sequence  of  ideas  is  in 
Dickens's  vein  ;  but  read  the  tale,  and  I  think  you  will  see 
how  little  the  thing  is  overdone,  how  simple  and  unforced 
it  is,  compared  with  analogous  persons  and  scenes  in  the 
work  of  the  English  master.  The  idiotic  yell  of  "  plagiarism  " 
has  been  raised,  of  course,  by  critical  cretins.  M.  Daudet, 
as  I  understand  what  he  says  in  "Trente  Ans  de  Paris," 
had  not  read  Dickens  at  all,  when  he  wrote  "Froment 
Jeune  " — certainly  had  not  read  "  Our  Mutual  Friend."  But 
there  is  something  of  Dickens's  genius  in  M.  Daudet's, 
and  that  something  is  kept  much  better  in  hand  by  the 
Frenchman,  is  more  subordinated  to  the  principles  of  taste 
and  of  truth. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  be  done  with  this  point,  look  at 
Delobelle,  the  father  of  De'sirde,  and  compare  him  with 
Dickens's  splendid  strollers,  with  Mr.  Vincent  Crummies, 
and  Mr.  Lenville,  and  the  rest.  As  in  Desiree  so  in 
Delobelle,  M.  Daudet's  picture  is  much  the  more  truthful. 
But  it  is  truthful  with  a  bitter  kind  of  truth.     Now,  there  is 


DICKENS.  125 

nothing  not  genial  and  delightful  in  Crummies  and  Mrs. 
Crummies  and  the  Infant  Phenomenon.  Here  Dickens 
has  got  into  a  region  unlike  the  region  of  the  pathetic,  into 
a  world  that  welcomes  charge  or  caricature,  the  world  of 
humour.  We  do  not  know,  we  never  meet  Crummleses 
quite  so  unsophisticated  as  Vincent,  who  is  "  not  a  Prussian," 
who  "  can't  think  who  puts  these  things  into  the  papers. ' 
But  we  do  meet  stage  people  who  come  very  near  to  this 
naivete  of  self-advertisement,  and  some  of  whom  are  just  as 
dismal  as  Crummies  is  delightful. 

Here,  no  doubt,  is  Dickens's  forte.  Here  his  genius  is 
all  pure  gold,  in  his  successful  studies  or  inventions  of  the 
humorous,  of  character  parts.  One  literally  does  not  know 
where  to  begin  or  end  in  one's  admiration  for  this  creative 
power  that  peopled  our  fancies  with  such  troops  of  dear  and 
impossible  friends.  "  Pickwick  "  comes  practically  first,  and 
he  never  surpassed  "Pickwick."  He  was  a  poor  story- 
teller, and  in  "  Pickwick "  he  had  no  story  to  tell ;  he 
merely  wandered  at  adventure  in  that  merrier  England 
which  was  before  railways  were.  "Pickwick"  is  the  last  of 
the  stories  of  the  road  that  begin  in  the  wandering,  aimless, 
adventurous  romances  of  Greece,  or  in  Petronius  Arbiter, 
and  that  live  with  the  life  of  "Gil  Bias"  and  "Don 
Quixote,"  of  "  Le  Roman  Comique,"  of  "  Tom  Jones  "  and 
"Joseph  Andrews."  These  tales  are  progresses  along 
highways  bristling  with  adventure,  and  among  inns  full  of 
confusion,  Mr.  Pickwick's  affair  with  the  lady  with  yellow 
curl-papers  being  a  mild  example.  Though  "  Tom  Jones  "  has 
a  plot  so  excellent,  no  plot  is  needed  here,  and  no  consecu- 
tive story  is  required.  Detached  experiences,  vagrants  of 
every  rank  that  come  and  go,  as  in  real  life,  are  all  the 


126  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

material  of  the  artist.  With  such  materials  Dickens  was 
exactly  suited ;  he  was  at  home  on  high-road  and  lane, 
street  and  field-path,  in  inns  and  yeomen's  warm  hospitable 
houses.  Never  a  humour  escaped  him,  and  he  had  such 
a  wealth  of  fun  and  high  spirits  in  these  glad  days  as  never 
any  other  possessed  before.  He  was  not  in  the  least  a 
bookish  man,  not  in  any  degree  a  scholar;  but  Nature 
taught  him,  and  while  he  wrote  with  Nature  for  his  teacher, 
with  men  and  women  for  his  matter,  with  diversion  for  his 
aim,  he  was  unsurpassable — nay,  he  was  unapproachable. 

He  could  not  rest  here ;  he  was,  after  all,  a  child  of  an 
age  that  grew  sad,  and  earnest,  and  thoughtful.  He  saw 
abuses  round  him — injustice,  and  oppression,  and  cruelty. 
He  had  a  heart  to  which  those  things  were  not  only 
abhorrent,  but,  as  it  were,  maddening.  He  knew  how 
great  an  influence  he  wielded,  and  who  can  blame  him 
for  using  it  in  any  cause  he  thought  good  ?  Very  possibly 
he  might  have  been  a  greater  artist  if  he  had  been  less 
of  a  man,  if  he  had  been  quite  disinterested,  and  had 
never  written  "with  a  purpose."  That  is  common,  and 
even  rather  obsolete  critical  talk.  But  when  we  re- 
member that  Fielding,  too,  very  often  wrote  "with  a 
purpose,"  and  that  purpose  the  protection  of  the  poor 
and  unfriended  ;  and  when  we  remember  what  an  artist 
Fielding  was,  I  do  not  see  how  we  can  blame  Dickens. 
Occasionally  he  made  his  art  and  his  purpose  blend  so 
happily  that  his  work  was  all  the  better  for  his  benevolent 
intentions.  We  owe  Mr.  Squeers,  Mrs.  Squeers,  Fanny 
Squeers,  W^ackford  and  all,  to  Dickens's  indignation  against 
the  nefarious  school  pirates  of  his  time.  If  he  is  less  suc- 
cessful in  attacking  the  Court  of  Chancery,  and  very  much 


DICKENS.  127 

less  successful  still  with  the  Red  Tape  and  Circumlocution 
Office  affairs,  that  may  be  merely  because  he  was  less  in  the 
humour,  and  not  because  he  had  a  purpose  in  his  mind. 
Every  one  of  a  man's  books  cannot  be  his  masterpiece. 
There  is  nothing  in  hterary  talk  so  annoying  as  the  spiteful 
joy  with  which  many  people  declare  that  an  author  is 
"worked  out,"  because  his  last  book  is  less  happy  than 
some  that  went  before.  There  came  a  time  in  Dickens' 
career  when  his  works,  to  my  own  taste  and  that  of  many 
people,  seemed  laboured,  artificial — in  fact,  more  or  less 
failures.  These  books  range  from  "  Dombey  and  Son," 
through  "  Little  Dorrit,"  I  dare  not  say  to  "  Our  Mutual 
Friend."  One  is  afraid  that  "  Edwin  Drood,"  too,  suggests 
the  malady  which  Sir  Walter  already  detected  in  his  own 
"  Peveril  of  the  Peak."  The  intense  strain  on  the  faculties 
of  Dickens— as  author,  editor,  reader,  and  man  of  the  world 
— could  not  but  tell  on  him ;  and  years  must  tell.  "  Philip  " 
is  not  worthy  of  the  author  of  "Esmond,"  nor  "Daniel 
Deronda  "  of  the  author  of  "  Silas  Marner,"  At  that  time — 
the  time  of  the  Dorrits  and  Dombeys — Blackwood's  Maga- 
zine published  a  "  Remonstrance  with  Boz  " ;  nor  was  it  quite 
superfluous.  But  Dickens  had  abundance  of  talent  still  to 
display— above  all  in  "  Great  Expectations  "and  "A  Tale  of 
Two  Cities."  The  former  is,  after  "  Pickwick,"  "  Copper- 
field,"  "  Martin  Chuzzlewit,"  and  "Nicholas  Nickleby  "—after 
the  classics,  in  fact — the  most  delightful  of  Dickens's  books. 
The  story  is  embroiled,  no  doubt.  What  are  we  to  think 
of  Estelle  ?  Has  the  minx  any  purpose  ?  Is  she  a  kind 
of  Ethel  Newcome  of  odd  life  ?  It  is  not  easy  to  say ;  still, 
for  a  story  of  Dickens's  the  plot  is  comparatively  clear 
and  intelligible.     For  a  study  of  a  child's  life,  of  the  nature 


128  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Dickens  drew  best — the  river  and  the  marshes — and  for 
plenty  of  honest  explosive  fun,  there  is  no  later  book  of 
Dickens's  like  "  Great  Expectations."  Miss  Havisham,  too, 
in  her  mouldy  bridal  splendour,  is  really  impressive ;  not 
like  Ralph  Nickleby  and  Monk  in  "  Oliver  Twist " — a  book 
of  which  the  plot  remains  to  me  a  mystery.*  Pip  and 
Pumblechook  and  Mr.  Wopsle  and  Jo  are  all  immortal,  and 
cause  laughter  inextinguishable.  The  rarity  of  this  book,  by 
the  way,  in  its  first  edition — the  usual  library  three  volumes 
— is  rather  difficult  to  explain.  One  very  seldom  sees  it 
come  into  the  market,  and  then  it  is  highly  priced. 

I  have  mentioned  more  than  once  the  obscurity  of 
Dickens's  plots.  This  difficulty  may  be  accounted  for  in 
a  very  flattering  manner.  Where  do  we  lose  ourselves? 
Not  in  the  bare  high-road,  but  among  lanes,  between 
hedges  hung  with  roses,  blackberries,  morning  glories, 
where  all  about  us  is  so  full  of  pleasure  that  our  attention 
is  distracted  and  we  miss  our  way.  Now,  in  Dickens — ■ 
in  "  Oliver  Twist,"  in  "  Martin  Chuzzlewit,"  in  "  Nicholas 
Nickleby" — there  is,  as  in  the  lanes,  so  much  to  divert 
and  beguile,  that  we  cease*  to  care  very  much  where 
the  road  leads — a  road  so  full  of  happy  marvels.  The 
dark,  plotting  villains — like  the  tramp  who  frightened  Sir 
Walter  Scott  so  terribly,  as  he  came  from  Miss  Baillie's 

*  Mr.  Henley  has  lately,  as  a  loyal  Dickensite,  been  defending  the 
plots  of  Dickens,  and  his  tragedy.  Pro  captu  lectoris ;  if  the  reader 
likes  them,  then  ihey  are  good  for  the  reader  :  "good  absolute,  not  for 
me  though,"  perhaps.  The  plot  of  '•  Martin  Chuzzlewit  "  may  be  good, 
but  the  conduct  of  old  Martin  would  strike  me  as  improbable  if  I  met 
it  in  the  "  Arabian  Nights."  That  the  creator  of  Pecksniff  should  have 
taken  his  misdeeds  seriously,  as  if  Mr.  P<!cksnifF  had  been  a  Tartuffe, 
not  a  delight,  seems  curious. 


DICKENS.  129 

at  Hampstead — peer  out  from  behind  the  hedges  now 
and  then.  But  we  are  too  much  amused  by  the  light 
hearts  that  go  all  the  way,  by  the  Dodger  and  Crummies 
and  Mrs.  Gamp,  to  care  much  for  what  Ralph,  and  Monk, 
and  Jonas  Chuzzlewit  are  plotting.  It  may  not  be  that 
the  plot  is  so  confused,  but  that  we  are  too  much  diverted 
to  care  for  the  plot,  for  the  incredible  machinations  of 
Uriah  Heap,  to  choose  another  example.  Mr.  Micawber 
cleared  these  up ;  but  it  is  Mr.  Micawber  that  hinders 
us  from  heeding  them. 

This,  at  least,  is  a  not  unfriendly  explanation.  Yet  I 
cannot  but  believe  that,  though  Dickens  took  great  pains 
with  his  plots,  he  was  not  a  great  plotter.  He  was  not, 
any  more  than  Thackeray,  a  story-teller  first  and  foremost. 
We  can  hold  in  our  minds  every  thread  of  Mr.  Wilkie  Collins' 
web,  or  of  M.  Fortune  du  Boisgobey's,  or  of  M.  Gaboriau's 
— all  great  weavers  of  intrigues.  But  Dickens  goes  about 
darkening  his  intrigue,  giving  it  an  extra  knot,  an  extra 
twist,  hinting  here,  ominously  laughing  there,  till  we  get 
mystified  and  bored,  and  give  ourselves  up  to  the  fun 
of  the  humours,  indifferent  to  the  destinies  of  villains 
and  victims.  Look  at  "  Edwin  Drood."  A  constant  war 
about  the  plot  rages  in  the  magazines.  I  believe,  for  one, 
that  Edwin  Drood  was  resuscitated ;  but  it  gives  me  no 
pleasure.  He  was  too  uninteresting.  Dickens's  hints, 
nods,  mutterings,  forebodings,  do  not  at  all  impress  one 
like  that  deepening  and  darkening  of  the  awful  omens 
in  "The  Bride  of  Lammermoor."  Here  Scott — uncon- 
sciously, no  doubt— used  the  very  manner  of  Homer  in  the 
Odyssey,  and  nowhere  was  his  genius  more  Homeric. 
That  was  romance. 

ff.  L.-l. 


fp  ES.SAVS  IN  LITTLE. 

The  "  Tale  of  Two  Cities  "  is  a  great  test  of  the  faith 
that  is  in  Dickensites.  Of  all  his  works  it  is  the  favourite 
with  the  wrong  sort !  Ladies  prefer  it.  Many  people 
can  read  it  who  cannot  otherwise  read  Dickens  at  all. 
This  in  itself  proves  that  it  is  not  a  good  example  of 
Dickens,  that  it  is  not  central,  that  it  is  an  outlying  province 
which  he  conquered.  It  is  not  a  favourite  of  mine.  The 
humour  of  the  humorous  characters  rings  false — for 
example,  the  fun  of  the  resurrection-man  with  the  wife  who 
"  flops."  But  Sidney  Carton  has  drawn  many  tears  down 
cheeks  not  accustomed  to  what  Mr.  B.  in  "  Pamela "  calls 
"pearly  fugitives." 

It  sometimes  strikes  one  that  certain  weaknesses  in 
our  great  novelists,  in  Thackeray  as  well  as  Dickens,  were 
caused  by  their  method  of  publication.  The  green  and 
yellow  leaves  flourished  on  the  trees  for  two  whole  years. 
Who  (except  Alexandre  the  Great)  could  write  so  much, 
and  yet  all  good?  Do  we  not  all  feel  that  "  David  Copper- 
■  field  "  should  have  been  compressed  ?  As  to  "  Pendennis," 
Mr.  Thackeray's  bad  health  when  he  wrote  it  might  well 
cause  a  certain  languor  in  the  later  pages.  Moreover,  he 
frankly  did  not  care  for  the  story,  and  blufily  says,  in  the 
preface,  that  he  respited  Colonel  Altamont  almost  at  the 
foot  of  the  gallows,  Dickens  took  himself  more  in 
earnest,  and,  having  so  many  pages  to  fill,  conscientiously 
made  Uriah  Heap  wind  and  wriggle  through  them  all. 

To  try  to  see  blots  in  the  sun,  and  to  pick  holes  in 
Dickens,  seems  ungrateful,  and  is  indeed  an  ungrateful 
task;  to  no  mortal  man  have  more  people  owed  mirth, 
pleasure,  forgetfulness  of  care,  knowledge  of  life  in  strange 
places.  ^  There  never  was  such  another  as  Charles  Dickens, 


DICKENS.  131 

nor  shall  we  see  his  like  sooner  than  the  like  of  Shake- 
speare. And  he  owed  all  to  native  genius  and  hard  work ; 
he  owed  almost  nothing  to  literature,  and  that  little  we 
regret.  He  was  influenced  by  Carlyle,  he  adopted  his 
method  of  nicknames,  and  of  hammering  with  wearisome 
iteration  on  some  peculiarity — for  example,  on  Carker's 
teeth,  and  the  patriarch's  white  hair.  By  the  way,  how 
incredible  is  all  the  Carker  episode  in  "  Dombey  "  !  Surely 
Dickens  can  never  have  intended  Edith,  from  the  first,  to 
behave  as  she  did  !  People  may  have  influenced  him,  as 
they  influenced  Scott  about  "St.  Ronan's  Well."  It  has 
been  said  that,  save  for  Carlyle,  Dickens  was  in  letters  a 
self-taught  artist,  that  he  was  no  man's  pupil,  and  borrowed 
from  none.  No  doubt  this  makes  him  less  acceptable  to 
the  literary  class  than  a  man  of  letters,  like  Thackeray — 
than  a  man  in  whose  treasure  chamber  of  memory  all  the 
wealth  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  stored,  like  Scott.  But  the 
native  naked  genius  of  Dickens, — his  heart,  his  mirth,  his 
observation,  his  delightful  high  spirits,  his  intrepid  loathing 
of  wrong,  his  chivalrous  desire  to  right  it, — these  things 
will  make  him  for  ever,  we  hope  and  believe,  the  darling 
of  the  English  people. 


ADVENTURES  OF  BUCCANEERS. 

MOST  of  us,  as  boys,  have  envied  the  buccaneers. 
The  greatest  of  all  boys,  Canon  Kingsley,  once 
wrote  a  pleasing  and  regretful  poem  in  which  the  Last 
Buccaneer  represents  himself  as  a  kind  of  picturesque 
philanthropist : — 

"  There  were  forty  craft  in  Aves  that  were  both  swift  and  stout, 
All  furnished  well  with  small  arms,  and  cannons  round  about ; 
And  a  thousand  men  in  Aves  made  laws  so  fair  and  free, 
To  choose  their  valiant  captains  and  obey  them  loyally. 
Thence  we  sailed  against  the  Spaniard  with  his  hoards  of  plate 

and  gold, 
Which  he  wrung  with  cruel  tortures  from  Indian  folk  of  old  ; 
Likewise  the  merchant  captains,  with  hearts  as  hard  as  stone, 
Who  flc^  men  and  keel-haul  them,  and  starve  them  to  the  bone." 

The  buccaneer  is  "a  gallant  sailor,"  according  to 
Kingsley's  poem — a  Robin  Hood  of  the  waters,  who  preys 
only  on  the  wicked  rich,  or  the  cruel  and  Popish  Spaniard, 
and  the  extortionate  shipowner.  For  his  own  part,  when 
he  is  not  rescuing  poor  Indians,  the  buccaneer  lives  mainly 
"  for  climate  and  the  affections  " : — 

"  Oh,  sweet  it  was  in  Aves  to  hear  the  landward  breeze, 

A  swing  with  good  tobacco  in  a  net  between  the  trees, 

With  a  negro  lass  to  fan  you,  while  you  listened  to  the  roar 

Of  the  breakers  on  the  reef  outside  that  never  touched  the  shore." 


ADVENTURES  OF  BUCCANEERS.  133 

This  is  delightfully  idyllic,  like  the  lives  of  the  Tahitian 
shepherds  in  the  Anti-Jacobin — the  shepherds  whose  occu- 
pation was  a  sinecure,  as  there  were  no  sheep  in  Tahiti. 

Yet  the  vocation  was  not  really  so  touchingly  chivalrous 
as  the  poet  would  have  us  deem.  One  Joseph  Esquemeling, 
himself  a  buccaneer,  has  written  the  history  and  described 
the  exploits  of  his  companions  in  plain  prose,  warning  eager 
youths  that  "  pieces-of- eight  do  not  grow  on  every  tree," 
as  many  raw  recruits  have  believed.  Mr.  Esquemeling's 
account  of  these  matters  may  be  purchased,  with  a  great 
deal  else  that  is  instructive  and  entertaining,  in  "  The 
History  of  the  Buccaneers  in  America."  My  edition  (of 
1810)  is  a  dumpy  little  book,  in  very  small  type,  and  quite 
a  crowd  of  publishers  took  part  in  the  venture.  The 
older  editions  are  difficult  to  procure  if  your  pockets  are 
not  stuffed  with  pieces-of-eight.  You  do  not  often  find  even 
this  volume,  but  "  when  found  make  a  note  of,"  and  you 
have  a  reply  to  Canon  Kingsley. 
^  A  charitable  old  Scotch  lady,  who  heard  our  ghostly 
foe  evil  spoken  of,  remarked  that,  "  If  we  were  all  as 
diligent  and  conscientious  as  the  Devil,  it  would  be  better 
' '  for  us."  Now,  the  buccaneers  were  certainly  models  of 
diligence  and  conscientiousness  in  their  own  industry, 
which  was  to  torture  people  till  they  gave  up  their  goods, 
and  then  to  run  them  through  the  body,  and  spend  the 
spoils  over  drink  and  dice.  Except  Dampier,  who  was  a 
clever  man,  but  a  poor  buccaneer  (Mr.  Clark  Russell  has 
written  his  life),  they  were  the  most  hideously  ruthless 
miscreants  that  ever  disgraced  the  earth  and  the  sea.  But 
their  courage  and  endurance  were  no  less  notable  than 
their  greed  and  cruelty,  so  that      moral  can  be  squeezed 


134  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

even  out  of  these  abandoned  miscreants.  The  soldiers  and 
sailors  who  made  their  way  within  gunshot  of  Khartoum, 
overcoming  thirst,  hunger,  heat,  the  desert,  and  the  gallant 
children  of  the  desert,  did  not  fight,  march,  and  suffer 
more  bravely  than  the  scoundrels  who  sacked  Mairaibo 
and  burned  Panama.  Their  good  qualities  were  no  less 
astounding  and  exemplary  than  their  almost  incredible 
wickedness.  They  did  not  lie  about  in  hammocks  much, 
listening  to  the  landward  wind  among  the  woods — the  true 
buccaneers.  To  tell  the  truth,  most  of  them  had  no  par- 
ticular cause  to  love  the  human  species.  They  were  often 
Europeans  who  had  been  sold  into  slavery  on  the  West 
Indian  plantations,  where  they  learned  lessons  of  cruelty  by 
suffering  it.  Thus  Mr.  Joseph  Esquemeling,  our  historian, 
was  beaten,  tortured,  and  nearly  starved  to  death  in 
Tortuga,  "  so  I  determined,  not  knowing  how  to  get  any 
living,  to  enter  into  the  order  of  the  pirates  or  robbers  of 
the  sea."  The  poor  Indians  of  the  isles,  much  pitied  by 
Kingsley's  buccaneer,  had  a  habit  of  sticking  their  prisoners 
all  over  with  thorns,  wrapped  in  oily  cotton,  whereto  they 
then  set  fire.  "  These  cruelties  many  Christians  have  seen 
while  they  lived  among  these  barbarians."  Mr.  Esqueme- 
ling was  to  see,  and  inflict,  plenty  of  this  kind  of  torment, 
which  was  not  out  of  the  way  nor  unusual.  One  planter 
alone  had  killed  over  a  hundred  of  his  servants — "  the 
English  did  the  same  with  theirs." 

A  buccaneer  voyage  began  in  stealing  a  ship,  collecting 
desperadoes,  and  torturing  the  local  herdsmen  till  they  gave 
up  their  masters'  flocks,  which  were  salted  as  provisions. 
Articles  of  service  were  then  drawn  up,  on  the  principle 
"no  prey,  no  pay."     The  spoils,  when  taken,  were  loyally 


ADVENTURES  OF  BUCCANEERS.  135 

divided  as  a  rule,  though  Captain  Morgan,  of  Wales,  made 
no  more  scruple  about  robbing  his  crew  than  about  barbe- 
cuing a  Spanish  priest.  "They  are  very  civil  and  charitable 
to  each  other,  so  that  if  any  one  wants  what  another  has, 
with  great  willingness  they  give  it  to  one  another."  In 
other  matters  they  did  not  in  the  least  resemble  the  early 
Christians.  A  fellow  nick-named  The  Portuguese  may  be 
taken  as  our  first  example  of  their  commendable  qualities. 

With  a  small  ship  of  four  guns  he  had  taken  a  great  one 
of  twenty  guns,  with  70,000  pieces-of-eight.  .  .  .  He  him- 
self, however,  was  presently  captured  by  a  larger  vessel,  and 
imprisoned  on  board.  Being  carelessly  watched,  he  escaped 
on  two  earthen  jars  (for  he  could  not  swim),  reached  the 
woods  in  Campechy,  and  walked  for  a  hundred  and 
twenty  miles  through  the  bush.  His  only  food  was  a  few 
shell-fish,  and  by  way  of  a  knife  he  had  a  large  nail,  which 
he  whetted  to  an  edge  on  a  stone.  Having  made  a  kind 
of  raft,  he  struck  a  river,  and  paddled  to  Golpho  Triste, 
where  he  found  congenial  pirates.  With  twenty  of  these, 
and  a  boat,  he  returned  to  Campechy,  where  he  had  been 
a  prisoner,  and  actually  captured  the  large  ship  in  which 
he  had  lain  captive !  Bad  luck  pursued  him,  however  :  his 
prize  was  lost  in  a  storm  ;  he  reached  Jamaica  in  a  canoe, 
and  never  afterwards  was  concerned  as  leader  in  any  afl;iii 
of  distinction.  Not  even  Odysseus  had  more  resource,  nor 
was  more  long-enduring ;  but  Fortune  was  The  Portuguese's 
foe. 

Brazil iano,  another  buccaneer,  served  as  a  pirate  before 
the  mast,  and  "  was  beloved  and  respected  by  all."  Being 
raised  to  command,  he  took  a  plate  ship ;  but  this  success 
was  of  indifferent  service  to  his  otherwise  amiable  character. 


136  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

"  He  would  often  appear  foolish  and  brutish  when  in  drink," 
and  has  been  known  to  roast  Spaniards  alive  on  wooden 
spits  "  for  not  showing  him  hog  yards  where  he  might  steal 
swine."  One  can  hardly  suppose  that  Kingsley  would  have 
regretted  this  buccaneer,  even  if  he  had  been  the  last,  which 
unluckily  he  was  not.  His  habit  of  sitting  in  the  street 
beside  a  barrel  of  beer,  and  shooting  all  passers-by  who 
would  not  drink  with  him,  provoked  remark,  and  was  an 
act  detestable  to  all  friends  of  temperance  principles. 

Frangois  L'Olonnois,  from  southern  France,  had  been 
kidnapped,  and  sold  as  a  slave  in  the  Caribbee  Islands. 
Recovering  his  freedom,  he  plundered  the  Spanish,  says 
my  buccaneer  author,  "  till  his  unfortunate  death."  With 
two  canoes  he  captured  a  ship  which  had  been  sent  after 
him,  carrying  ten  guns  and  a  hangman  for  his  express 
benefit.  This  hangman,  much  to  the  fellow's  chagrin, 
L'Olonnois  put  to  death  like  the  rest  of  his  prisoners.  His 
great  achievements  were  in  the  Gulf  of  Venezuela  or  Bay 
of  Maracaibo.  The  gulf  is  a  strong  place ;  the  mouth,  no 
wider  than  a  gun-shot,  is  guarded  by  two  islands.  Far  up 
the  inlet  is  Maracaibo,  a  town  of  three  thousand  people, 
fortified  and  surrounded  by  woods.  Yet  farther  up  is  the 
town  of  Gibraltar.  To  attack  these  was  a  desperate  enter- 
prise ;  but  L'Olonnois  stole  past  the  forts,  and  frightened  the 
townsfolk  into  the  woods.  As  a  rule  the  Spaniards  made 
the  poorest  resistance;  there  were  examples  of  courage, 
but  none  of  conduct.  With  strong  forts,  heavy  guns,  many 
men,  provisions,  and  ammunition,  they  quailed  before  the 
desperate  valour  of  the  pirates.  The  towns  were  sacked, 
the  fugitives  hunted  out  in  the  woods,  and  the  most 
abominable   tortures   were   applied   to   make  them  betray 


ADVENTURES  OF  BUCCANEERS.  137 

their  friends  and  reveal  their  treasures.  When  they  were 
silent,  or  had  no  treasures  to  declare,  they  were  hacked, 
twisted,  burned,  and  starved  to  death. 

Such  were,  the   manners  of  L'OIonnois ;   and  Captain 
Morgan,  of  Wales,  was  even  more  ruthless. 

Gibraltar  was  well  fortified  and  strengthened  after  Mara- 
caibo  fell ;  new  batteries  were  raised,  the  way  through  the 
woods  was  barricaded,  and  no  fewer  than  eight  hundred 
men  were  under  arms  to  resist  a  small  pirate  force,  exhausted 
by  debauch,  and  having  its  retreat  cut  off  by  the  forts  at 
the  mouth  of  the  great  salt-water  loch.  But  L'OIonnois  did 
not  blench :  he  told  the  man  that  audacity  was  their  one 
hope,  also  that  he  would  pistol  the  first  who  gave  ground. 
The  men  cheered  enthusiastically,  and  a  party  of  three 
hundred  and  fifty  landed.  The  barricaded  way  they  could 
not  force,  and  in  a  newly  cut  path  they  met  a  strong  battery 
which  fired  grape.  But  L'OIonnois  was  invincible.  He  tried 
that  old  trick  which  rarely  fails,  a  sham  retreat,  and  this 
lured  the  Spaniards  from  their  earthwork  on  the  path.  The 
pirates  then  turned,  sword  in  hand,  slew  two  hundred  of 
the  enemy,  and  captured  eight  guns.  The  town  yielded, 
the  people  fled  to  the  woods,  and  then  began  the  wonted 
sport  of  torturing  the  prisoners.  Maracaibo  they  ransomed 
afresh,  obtained  a  pilot,  passed  the  forts  with  ease,  and 
returned  after  sacking  a  small  province.  On  a  dividend 
being  declared,  they  parted  260,000  pieces-of-eight  among 
the  band,  and  spent  the  pillage  in  a  revel  of  three  weeks. 

L'OIonnois  "got  great  repute"  by  this  conduct,  but  I  rejoice 
to  add  that  in  a  raid  on  Nicaragua  he  "  miserably  perished," 
and  met  what  Mr.  Esquemeling  calls  **  his  unfortunate 
death."     For    L'OIonnois    was    really    an    ungentlemanly 


138  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

character.  He  would  hack  a  Spaniard  to  pieces,  tear  out 
his  heart,  and  "gnaw  it  with  his  teeth  like  a  ravenous  wolf, 
saying  to  the  rest,  "  I  will  serve  you  all  alike  if  you  show 
me  not  another  way ' "  (to  a  town  which  he  designed  attack- 
ing). In  Nicaragua  he  was  taken  by  the  Indians,  who, 
being  entirely  on  the  Spanish  side,  tore  him  to  pieces  and 
burned  him.  Thus  we  really  must  not  be  deluded  by  the 
professions  of  Mr.  Kingsley's  sentimental  buccaneer,  with 
his  pity  for  "  the  Indian  folk  of  old." 

Except  Denis  Scott,  a  worthy  bandit  in  his  day, 
Captain  Henry  Morgan  is  the  first  renowned  British  buc- 
caneer. He  was  a  young  Welshman,  who,  after  having 
been  sold  as  a  slave  in  Barbadoes,  became  a  sailor  of 
fortune.  With  about  four  hundred  men  he  assailed  Puerto 
Bello.  "  If  our  number  is  small,"  he  said,  "  our  hearts 
are  great,"  and  so  he  assailed  the  third  city  and  place  of 
arms  which  Spain  then  possessed  in  the  West  Indies.  The 
entrance  of  the  harbour  was  protected  by  two  strong  castles, 
judged  as  "  almost  impregnable,"  while  Morgan  had  no 
artillery  of  any  avail  against  fortresses.  Morgan  had  the 
luck  to  capture  a  Spanish  soldier,  whom  he  compelled  to 
parley  with  the  garrison  of  the  castle.  This  he  stormed 
and  blew  up,  massacring  all  its  defenders,  while  with  its 
guns  he  disarmed  the  sister  fortress.  When  all  but  defeated 
in  a  new  assault,  the  sight  of  the  English  colours  animated 
him  afresh.  He  made  the  captive  monks  and  nuns  carry 
the  scaling  ladders;  in  this  unwonted  exploit  the  poor 
religious  folk  lost  many  of  their  numbers.  The  wall  was 
mounted,  the  soldiers  were  defeated,  though  the  Governor 
fought  like  a  Spaniard  of  the  old  school,  slew  many  pirates 
with  his  own  hand,  and  pistolled  some  of  his  own  men  for 


ADVENTURES  OF  BUCCANEERS.  139 

cowardice.  He  died  at  his  post,  refusing  quarter,  and  falling 
like  a  gentleman  of  Spain.  Morgan,  too,  was  not  wanting 
in  fortitude  :  he  extorted  100,000  pieces-of-eight  from  the 
Governor  of  Panama,  and  sent  him  a  pistol  as  a  sample  of 
the  gun  wherewith  he  took  so  great  a  city.  He  added 
that  he  would  return  and  take  this  pistol  out  of  Panama ; 
nor  was  he  less  good  than  his  word.  In  Cuba  he  divided 
250,000  pieces-of-eight,  and  a  great  booty  in  other  treasure. 
A  few  weeks  saw  it  all  in  the  hands  of  the  tavern-keepers 
and  women  of  the  place. 

Morgan's  next  performance  was  a  new  sack  of  Maracaibo, 
now  much  stronger  than  L'Olonnois  had  found  it.  After 
the  most  appalling  cruelties,  not  fit  to  be  told,  he  returned, 
passing  the  castles  at  the  mouth  of  the  port  by  an  ingenious 
stratagem.  Running  boatload  after  boatload  of  men  to  the 
land  side,  he  brought  them  back  by  stealth,  leading  the 
garrison  to  expect  an  attack  from  that  quarter.  The  guns 
were  massed  to  landward,  and  no  sooner  was  this  done 
than  Morgan  sailed  up  through  the  channel  with  but  little 
loss.  Why  the  Spaniards  did  not  close  the  passage  with 
a  boom  does  not  appear.  Probably  they  were  glad  to  be 
quit  of  Morgan  on  any  terms. 

•  A  great  Spanish  fleet  he  routed  by  the  ingenious  em- 
ployment of  a  fire-ship.  In  a  later  expedition  a  strong 
place  was  taken  by  a  curious  accident.  One  of  the  buc- 
caneers was  shot  through  the  body  with  an  arrow.  He 
drew  it  out,  wrapped  it  in  cotton,  fired  it  from  his  musket, 
and  so  set  light  to  a  roof  and  burned  the  town. 

His  raid  on  Panama  was  extraordinary  for  the  endurance 
of  his  men.  For  days  they  lived  on  the  leather  of  bottles 
and  belts.     "  Some,  who  were  never  out  of  their  mothers' 


I40  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

kitchens,  may  ask  how  these  pirates  could  eat  and  digest 
these  pieces  of  leather,  so  hard  and  dry  ?  Whom  T  answer 
— that  could  they  once  experience  what  hunger,  or  rather 
famine  is,  they  would  find  the  way,  as  the  pirates  did."  It 
was  at  the  close  of  this  march  that  the  Indians  drove  wild 
bulls  among  them  ;  but  they  cared  very  little  for  these  new 
allies  of  the  Spaniards :  beef,  in  any  form,  was  only  too 
welcome. 

Morgan  burned  the  fair  cedar  houses  of  Panama,  but 
lost  the  plate  ship  with  all  the  gold  and  silver  out  of  the 
churches.  How  he  tortured  a  poor  wretch  who  chanced 
to  wear  a  pair  of  taffety  trousers  belonging  to  his  master, 
with  a  small  silver  key  hanging  out,  it  is  better  not  to 
repeat.  The  men  only  got  two  hundred  pieces-of-eight 
each,  after  all  their  toil,  for  their  Welshman  was  indeed  a 
thief,  and  bilked  his  crews,  no  less  than  he  plundered  the 
Spaniards,  without  remorse.  Finally,  he  sneaked  away 
from  the  fleet  with  a  ship  or  two ;  and  it  is  to  be  feared 
that  Captain  Morgan  made  rather  a  good  thing  by  dint  of 
his  incredible  cruelty  and  villainy. 

And  so  we  leave  Mr.  Esquemeling,  whom  Captain  Morgan 
also  deserted ;  for  who  would  linger  long  when  there  is  not 
even  honour  among  thieves  ?  Alluring  as  the  pirate's  pro-  • 
fession  is,  we  must  not  forget  that  it  had  a  seamy  side, 
and  was  by  no  means  all  rum  and  pieces-of-eight.  And 
there  is  something  repulsivfe  to  a  generous  nature  in  roasting 
men  because  they  will  not  show  you  where  to  steal  hogs. 


THE   SAGAS. 

"  'TT'  HE  general  reader,"  says  a  frank  critic,  "  hates  the 
X  very  name  of  a  Saga."  The  general  reader,  in 
that  case,  is  to  be  pitied,  and,  if  possible,  converted. 
But,  just  as  Pascal  admits  that  the  sceptic  can  only 
become  religious  by  living  as  if  he  were  religious — by 
stupefying  himself,  as  Pascal  plainly  puts  it,  with  holy 
water — so  it  is  to  be  feared  that  there  is  but  a  single 
way  of  winning  over  the  general  reader  to  the  Sagas. 
Preaching  and  example,  as  in  this  brief  essay,  will  not 
avail  with  him.  He  must  take  Pascal's  advice,  and  live 
for  an  hour  or  two  as  if  he  were  a  lover  of  Sagas.  He 
must,  in  brief,  give  that  old  literature  a  fair  chance.  He 
has  now  his  opportunity :  Mr.  William  Morris  and  Mr. 
Eirikr  Magnusson  are  publishing  a  series  of  cheap  transla- 
tions— cheap  only  in  coin  of  the  realm — a  Saga  Library. 
If  a  general  reader  tries  the  first  tale  in  the  first  volume, 
story  of  "  Howard  the  Halt," — if  he  tries  it  honestly,  and 
still  can  make  no  way  with  it,  then  let  him  take  comfort 
in  the  doctrine  of  Invincible  Ignorance.  Let  him  go 
back  to  his  favourite  literature  of  gossiping  reminiscence, 
or  of  realistic  novels.  We  have  all,  probably,  a  drop  of  the 
Northmen's  blood  in  us,  but  in  that  general  reader  the 
blood  is  dormant. 


142  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

What  is  a  Saga  ?  It  is  neither  quite  a  piece  of  history 
nor  wholly  a  romance.  It  is  a  very  old  story  of  things  and 
adventures  that  really  happened,  but  happened  so  long  ago, 
and  in  times  so  superstitious,  that  marvels  and  miracles 
found  their  way  into  the  legend.  The  best  Sagas  are  those 
of  Iceland,  and  those,  in  translations,  are  the  finest  reading 
that  the  natural  man  can  desire.  If  you  want  true  pictures 
of  life  and  character,  which  are  always  the  same  at  bottom, 
or  true  pictures  of  manners,  which  are  always  changing,  and 
of  strange  customs  and  lost  beliefs,  in  the  Sagas  they  are 
to  be  found.  Or  if  you  like  tales  of  enterprise,  of  fighting 
by  land  and  sea,  fighting  with  men  and  beasts,  with  storms 
and  ghosts  and  fiends,  the  Sagas  are  full  of  this  entertain- 
ment. 

The  stories  of  which  we  are  speaking  were  first  told  in 
Iceland,  perhaps  from  950  to  iioo  B.C.  When  Norway  and 
Sweden  were  still  heathen,  a  thousand  years  ago,  they  were 
possessed  by  families  of  noble  birth,  owning  no  master,  and 
often  at  war  with  each  other,  when  the  men  were  not  sail- 
ing the  seas,  to  rob  and  kill  in  Scotland,  England,  France, 
Italy,  and  away  east  as  far  as  Constantinople,  or  farther. 
Though  they  were  wild  sea  robbers  and  warriors,  they  were 
sturdy  farmers,  great  shipbuilders  ;  every  man  of  them, 
however  wealthy,  could  be  his  own  carpenter,  smith,  ship- 
wright, and  ploughman.  They  forged  their  own  good  short 
swords,  hammered  their  own  armour,  ploughed  their  own 
fields.  In  short,  they  lived  like  Odysseus,  the  hero  of 
Homer,  and  were  equally  skilled  in  the  arts  of  war  and 
peace.  They  were  mighty  lawyers,  too,  and  had  a  most 
curious  and  minute  system  of  laws  on  all  subjects — land, 
marriage,  murder,  trade,  and  so  forth.    These  laws  were  not 


THE  SAGAS.  143 

written,  though  the  people  had  a  kind  of  letters  called  runes. 
But  they  did  not  use  them  much  for  documents,  but  merely 
for  carving  a  name  on  a  sword-blade,  or  a  tombstone,  or 
on  great  gold  rings  such  as  they  wore  on  their  arms.  Thus 
the  laws  existed  in  the  memory  and  judgment  of  the  oldest 
and  wisest  and  most  righteous  men  of  the  country.  The 
most  important  was  the  law  of  murder.  If  one  man  slew 
another,  he  was  not  tried  by  a  jury,  but  any  relation  of  the 
dead  killed  him  "  at  sight,"  wherever  he  found  him.  Even 
in  an  Earl's  hall,  Kari  struck  the  head  off  one  of  his 
friend  Njal's  Burners,  and  the  head  bounded  on  the  board, 
among  the  trenchers  of  meat  and  the  cups  of  mead  or  ale. 
But  it  was  possible,  if  the  relations  of  a  slain  man  consented, 
for  the  slayer  to  pay  his  price — every  man  was  valued  at 
so  much — and  then  revenge  was  not  taken.  But,  as  a  rule, 
one  revenge  called  for  another.  Say  Hrut  slew  Hrap,  then 
Atli  slew  Hrut,  and  Gisli  slew  Atli,  and  Kari  slew  Gisli, 
and  so  on  till  perhaps  two  whole  families  were  extinct 
and  there  was  peace.  The  gods  were  not  offended  by 
manslaughter  openly  done,  but  were  angry  with  treachery, 
cowardice,  meanness,  theft,  perjury,  and  every  kind  of 
shabbiness. 

This  was  the  state  of  affairs  in  Norway  when  a  king  arose, 
Harold  Fair-Hair,  who  tried  to  bring  all  these  proud  people 
under  him,  and  to  make  them  pay  taxes  and  live  more 
regularly  and  quietly.  They  revolted  at  this,  and  when 
they  were  too  weak  to  defy  the  king  they  set  sail  and  fled 
to  Iceland.  There  in  the  lonely  north,  between  the  snow 
and  fire,  the  hot-water  springs,  the  volcano  of  Hecla,  the 
great  rivers  full  of  salmon  that  rush  down  such  falls  as 
Golden    Foot,   there   they   lived   their   old-fashioned   life. 


144  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

cruising  as  pirates  and  merchants,  taking  foreign  service 
at  Mickle  Garth,  or  in  England  or  Egypt,  filling  the 
world  with  the  sound  of  their  swords  and  the  sky  with 
the  smoke  of  their  burnings.  For  they  feared  neither  God 
nor  man  nor  ghost,  and  were  no  less  cruel  than  brave; 
the  best  of  soldiers,  laughing  at  death  and  torture,  like 
the  Zulus,  who  are  a  kind  of  black  Vikings  of  Africa. 
On  some  of  them  "  Bersark's  gang "  would  fall — that  is, 
they  would  become  in  a  way  mad,  slaying  all  and  sundry, 
biting  their  shields,  and  possessed  with  a  furious  strength 
beyond  that  of  men,  which  left  them  as  weak  as  children 
when  it  passed  away.  These  Bersarks  were  outlaws, 
all  men's  enemies,  and  to  kill  them  was  reckoned  a  great 
adventure,  and  a  good  deed.  The  women  were  worthy 
of  the  men — bold,  quarrelsome,  revengeful.  Some  were 
loyal,  like  Bergthora,  who  foresaw  how  all  her  sons  and 
her  husband  were  to  be  burned ;  but  who  would  not 
leave  them,  and  perished  in  the  burning  without  a  cry. 
Some  were  as  brave  as  Howard's  wife,  who  enabled  her 
husband,  old  and  childless,  to  overthrow  the  wealthy  bully, 
the  slayer  of  his  only  son.  Some  were  treacherous,  as 
Halgerda  the  Fair.  Three  husbands  she  had,  and  was 
the  death  of  every  man  of  them.  Her  last  lord  was  Gunnar 
of  Lithend,  the  bravest  and  most  peaceful  of  men.  Once 
she  did  a  mean  thing,  and  he  slapped  her  face.  She 
never  forgave  him.  At  last  enemies  besieged  him  in  his 
house.  The  doors  were  locked — all  was  quiet  within. 
One  of  the  enemies  climbed  up  to  a  window  slit,  and 
Gunnar  thrust  him  through  with  his  lance.  "Is  Gunnar 
at  home?"  said  the  besiegers.  "I  know  not — but  his 
lance  is,   said  the  wounded  man,  and  died  with  that  last  jest 


THE  SAGAS.  145 

on  his  lips.  For  long  Gunnar  kept  them  at  bay  with  his 
arrows,  but  at  last  one  of  them  cut  the  arrow  string.  "  Twist 
me  a  string  with  thy  hair,"  he  said  to  his  wife,  Halgerda, 
whose  yellow  hair  was  very  long  and  beautiful.  "  Is  it  a 
matter  of  thy  life  or  death?"  she  asked.  "Ay," he  said. 
"  Then  I  remember  that  blow  thou  gavest  me,  and  I  will 
see  thy  death."  So  Gunnar  died,  overcome  by  numbers, 
and  they  killed  Samr,  his  hound,  but  not  before  Samr  had 
killed  a  man. 

So  they  lived  always  with  sword  or  axe  in  hand — so  they 
lived,  and  fought,  and  died. 

Then  Christianity  was  brought  to  them  from  Norway 
by  Thangbrand,  and  if  any  man  said  he  did  not  believe 
a  word  of  it,  Thangbrand  had  the  schoolboy  argument, 
"Will  you  fight?"  So  they  fought  a  duel  on  a  holm  or 
island,  that  nobody  might  interfere— holm-gang  they  called 
it — and  Thangbrand  usually  killed  his  man.  In  Norway, 
Saint  Olaf  did  the  like,  killing  and  torturing  those  who 
held  by  the  old  gods — Thor,  Odin,  and  Freya,  and  the 
rest.  So,  partly  by  force  and  partly  because  they  were 
somewhat  tired  of  bloodshed,  horsefights,  and  the  rest, 
they  received  the  word  of  the  white  Christ  and  were 
baptised,  and  lived  by  written  law,  and  did  not  avenge 
themselves  by  their  own  hands. 

They  were  Christians  now,  but  they  did  not  forget  the  old 

times,  the  old  feuds  and  fightings  and  Bersarks,  and  dealings 

with  ghosts,  and  with  dead  bodies  that  arose  and  wrought 

horrible  things,  haunting  houses  and  strangling  men.     The 

Icelandic  ghosts  were  able-bodied,  well  "materialised,"  and 

Grettir  and  Olaf  Howard's  son  fought  them  with  strength 

of  arm  and  edge  of  steel.     True  stories   of  the  ancient 
WL.-I.  lo 


146  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

days  were  told  at  the  fireside  in  the  endless  winter  nights 
by  story  tellers  or  Scalds.  It  was  thought  a  sin  for  any 
one  to 'alter  these  old  stories,  but  as  generations  passed 
more  and  more  wonderful  matters  came  into  the  legend, 
It  was  believed  that  the  dead  Gunnar,  the  famed  archer, 
sang  within  his  cairn  or  "  Howe,"  the  mound  wherein 
he  was  buried,  and  his  famous  bill  or  cutting  spear  was 
said  to  have  been  made  by  magic,  and  to  sing  in  the 
night  before  the  wounding  of  men  and  the  waking  of  war. 
People  were  thought  to  be  "  second-sighted  " — that  is,  to 
have  prophetic  vision.  The  night  when  Njal's  house  was 
burned  his  wife  saw  all  the  meat  on  the  table  "  one  gore 
of  blood,"  just  as  in  Homer  the  prophet  Theoclymenus 
beheld  blood  falling  in  gouts  from  the  walls,  before  the 
slaying  of  the  Wooers.  The  Valkyries,  the  Choosers  of 
the  slain,  and  the  Norns  who  wove  the  fates  of  men  at  a 
ghastly  loom  were  seen  by  living  eyes.  In  the  graves  where 
treasures  were  hoarded  the  Barrowwights  dwelt,  ghosts 
that  were  sentinels  over  the  gold :  witchwives  changed 
themselves  into  wolves  and  other  monstrous  animals,  and 
for  many  weeks  the  heroes  Signy  and  Sinfjotli  ran  wild  in 
the  guise  of  wolves. 

These  and  many  other  marvels  crept  into  the  Sagas,  and 
made  the  listeners  feel  a  shudder  of  cold  beside  the  great 
fire  that  burned  in  the  centre  of  the  skali  or  hall  where 
the  chief  sat,  giving  meat  and  drink  to  all  who  came,  where 
the  women  span  and  the  Saga  man  told  the  tales  of  long 
ago.  Finally,  at  the  end  of  the  middle  ages,  these  Sagas 
were  written  down  in  Icelandic,  and  in  Latin  occasionally, 
and  many  of  them  have  been  translated  into  English. 

Unluckily,  these  translations  have  hitherto  been  expensive 


THE  SAGAS.  147 

to  buy,  and  were  not  always  to  be  had  easily.  For  the  wise 
world,  which  reads  newspapers  all  day  and  half  the  night, 
does  not  care  much  for  books,  still  less  for  good  books, 
least  of  all  for  old  books.  You  can  make  no  money  out 
of  reading  Sagas  :  they  have  nothing  to  say  about  stocks 
and  shares,  nor  about  Prime  Ministers  and  politics.  Nor 
will  they  amuse  a  man,  if  nothing  amuses  him  but  accounts 
of  races  and  murders,  or  gossip  about  Mrs.  Nokes's  new 
novel,  Mrs.  Stokes's  new  dresses,  or  Lady  Jones's  diamonds. 
The  Sagas  only  tell  how  brave  men — of  our  own  blood 
very  likely — lived,  and  loved,  and  fought,  and  voyaged, 
and  died,  before  there  was  much  reading  or  writing,  when 
they  sailed  without  steam,  travelled  without  railways,  and 
warred  hand-to-hand,  not  with  hidden  dynamite  and  sunk 
torpedoes.  But,  for  stories  of  gallant  life  and  honest  purpose, 
the  Sagas  are  among  the  best  in  the  world. 

Of  Sagas  in  English  one  of  the  best  is  the  "  Volsunga," 
the  story  of  the  Niflungs  and  Volsungs.  •  This  book,  thanks 
to  Mr.  William  Morris,  can  be  bought  for  a  shilling.  It 
is  a  strange  tale  in  which  gods  have  their  parts,  the  tale 
of  that  oldest  Treasure  Hunt,  the  Hunt  for  the  gold  of 
the  dwarf  Andvari.  This  was  guarded  by  the  serpent, 
Fafnir,  who  had  once  been  a  man,  and  who  was  killed 
by  the  hero  Sigurd.  But  Andvari  had  cursed  the  gold, 
because  his  enemies  robbed  him  of  it  to  the  very  last 
ring,  and  had  no  pity.  Then  the  brave  Sigurd  was  in- 
volved in  the  evil  luck.  He  it  was  who  rode  through  the 
fire,  and  woke  the  fair  enchanted  Brynhild,  the  Shield- 
maiden.  And  she  loved  him,  and  he  her,  with  all  their 
hearts,  always  to  the  death.  But  by  ill  fate  she  was  married 
to  another  man,  Sigurd's  chief  friend,  and  Sigurd  to  another 


148  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

woman.  And  the  women  fell  to  jealousy  and  quarrelling 
as  women  will,  and  they  dragged  the  friends  into  the  feud, 
and  one  manslaying  after  another  befell,  till  that  great 
murder  of  men  in  the  Hall  of  Atli,  the  King.  The  curse 
came  on  one  and  all  of  them — a  curse  of  blood,  and  of  evil 
loves,  and  of  witchwork  destroying  good  and  bad,  all  fear- 
less, and  all  fallen  in  one  red  ruin. 

The  "  Volsunga  Saga "  has  this  unique  and  unparalleled 
interest,  that  it  gives'  the  spectacle  of  the  highest  epic 
genius,  struggling  out  of  savagery  into  complete  and  free 
and  conscious  humanity.  It  is  a  mark  of  the  savage 
intellect  not  to  discriminate  abruptly  between  man  and  the 
lower  animals.  In  the  tales  of  the  lower  peoples,  the 
characters  are  just  as  often  beasts  as  men  and  women. 
Now,  in  the  earlier  and  wilder  parts  of  the  "Volsunga 
Saga,"  otters  and  dragons  play  human  parts.  Signy  and 
his  son,  and  the  mother  of  their  enemy,  put  on  the  skins 
of  wolves,  become 'wolves,  and  pass  through  hideous  ad- 
ventures. The  story  reeks  with  blood,  and  ravins  with 
lust  of  blood.  But  when  Sigurd  arrives  at  full  years  of 
manhood,  the  barbarism  yields  place,  the  Saga  becomes 
human  and  conscious. 

These  legends  deal  little  with  love.  But  in  the  "  Volsunga 
Saga  "  the  permanent  interest  is  the  true  and  deathless  love 
of  Sigurd  and  Brynhild:  their  separation  by  magic  arts, 
the  revival  of  their  passion  too  late,  the  man's  resigned 
and  heroic  acquiescence,  the  fiercer  passion  of  the  woman 
who  will  neither  bear  her  fate  nor  accept  her  bliss  at  the 
price  of  honour  and  her  plighted  word. 

The  situation,  the  nodus,  is  neither  ancient  merely  nor 
modern  merely,  but  of  all  time.    Sigurd,  having  at  last 


THE  SAGAS.  149 

discovered  the  net  in  which  he  was  trapped,  was  content 
to  make  the  best  of  marriage  and  of  friendship.  Brynhild 
was  not.  "  The  hearts  of  women  are  the  hearts  of  wolves," 
says  the  ancient  Sanskrit  commentary  on  the  Rig  Veda. 
But  the  she-wolfs  heart  broke,  like  a  woman's,  when  she 
had  caused  Sigurd's  slaying.  Both  man  and  woman  face 
life,  as  they  conceive  it,  with  eyes  perfectly  clear. 

The  magic  and  the  supernatural  wiles  are  accidental,  the 
human  heart  is  essential  and  eternal.  There  is  no  scene 
like  this  in  the  epics  of  Greece.  This  is  a  passion  that 
Homer  did  not  dwell  upon.  In  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey 
the  repentance  of  Helen  is  facile;  she  takes  life  easily. 
Clytemnestra  is  not  brought  on  the  stage  to  speak  for 
herself.  In  this  respect  the  epic  of  the  North,  without  the 
charm  and  the  delightfulness  of  the  Southern  epic,  excels 
it;  in  this  and  in  a  certain  bare  veracity,  but  in  nothing 
else.  We  cannot  put  the  Germanic  legend  on  the  level  of 
the  Greek,  for  variety,  for  many-sided  wisdom,  for  changing 
beauty  of  a  thousand  colours.  But  in  this  one  passion  of 
love  the  "  Volsunga  Saga  "  excels  the  Iliad. 

The  Greek  and  the  Northern  stories  are  alike  in  one 
thing.  Fate  is  all-powerful  over  gods  and  men.  Odin  can- 
not save  Balder ;  nor  Thetis,  Achilles  ;  nor  Zeus,  Sarpedon. 
But  in  the  Sagas  fate  is  more  constantly  present  to  the 
mind.  Much  is  thought  of  being  "  lucky,"  or  "  unlucky." 
Howard's  "  good  luck  "  is  to  be  read  in  his  face  by  the  wise, 
even  when,  fo  the  common  gaze,  he  seems  a  half-paralytic 
dotard,  dying  of  grief  and  age. 

Fate  and  evil  luck  dog  the  heroes  of  the  Sagas.  They 
seldom  "  end  well,"  as  people  say,—  unless,  when  a  brave 
man  lies  down  to  die  on  the  bed  he  has  strewn  of  the 


ISO  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

bodies  of  his  foes,  you  call  that  ending  well.  So  died 
Grettir  the  StroHg.  Even  from  a  boy  he  was  strong  and 
passionate,  short  of  temper,  quick  of  stroke,  but  loyal, 
brave,  and  always  unlucky.  His  worst  luck  began  after 
he  slew  Glam.  This  Glam  was  a  wicked  heathen  herds- 
man, who  would  not  fast  on  Christmas  Eve.  So  on  the 
nills  his  dead  body  was  found,  swollen  as  great  as  an  ox, 
and  as  blue  as  death. 

What  killed  him  they  did  not  know.  But  he  haunted  the 
farmhouse,  riding  the  roof,  kicking  the  sides  with  his  heels, 
killing  cattle  and  destroying  all  things.  Then  Grettir  came 
that  way,  and  he  slept  in  the  hall.  At  night  the  dead  Glam 
came  in,  and  Grettir  arose,  and  to  it  they  went,  struggling 
and  dashing  the  furniture  to  bits.  Glam  even  dragged 
Grettir  to  the  door,  that  he  might  slay  him  under  the  sky, 
and  for  all  his  force  Grettir  yielded  ground.  Then  on  the 
very  threshold  he  suddenly  gave  way  when  Glam  was 
pulling  hardest,  and  they  fell,  Glam  undermost  Then 
Grettir  drew  the  short  sword,  "  Kari's  loom,"  that  he  had 
taken  from  a  haunted  grave,  and  stabbed  the  dead  thing 
that  had  lived  again.  But,  as  Glam  lay  a-dying  in  the 
second  death,  the  moon  fell  on  his  awful  eyes,  and  Grettir 
saw  the  horror  of  them,  and  from  that  hour  he  could  not 
endure  to  be  in  the  dark,  and  he  never  dared  to  go  alone. 
This  was  his  death,  for  he  had  an  evil  companion  who 
betrayed  him  to  his  enemies  ;  but  when  they  set  on  Grettir, 
though  he  was  tired  and  sick  of  a  wound,*  many  died 
with  him.  No  man  died  like  Grettir  the  Strong,  nor  slew 
so  many  in  his  death. 

Besides  those  Sagas,  there  is  the  best  of  all,  but  the 
longest,   **  Njala "   (pronounced    "  Nyoula "),   the  story  of 


THE  SAGAS.  151 

Burnt  Njal.  That  is  too  long  to  sketch  here,  but  it  tells 
how,  through  the  hard  hearts  and  jealousy  of  women, 
ruin  came  at  last  on  the  gentle  Gunnar,  and  the 
reckless  Skarphedin  of  the  axe,  "  The  Ogress  of  War," 
and  how  Njal,  the  wisest,  the  most  peaceful,  the  most 
righteous  of  men,  was  burned  with  all  his  house,  and 
how  that  evil  deed  was  avenged  on  the  Burners  of 
Kari. 

The  site  of  Njal's  house  is  yet  to  be  seen,  after  these 
nine  hundred  years,  and  the  little  glen  where  Kari  hid 
when  he  leaped  through  the  smoke  and  the  flame  that 
made  his  sword- blade  blue.  Yes,  the  very  black  sand  that 
Bergthora  and  her  maids  threw  on  the  fire  lies  there  yet, 
and  remnants  of  the  whey  they  cast  on  the  flames,  when 
water  failed  them.  They  were  still  there  beneath  the  earth 
when  an  English  traveller  dug  up  some  of  the  ground  last 
year,  and  it  is  said  that  an  American  gentleman  found  a 
gold  ring  in  the  house  of  Njal.  The  story  of  him  and  of 
his  brave  sons,  and  of  his  slaves,  and  of  his  kindred,  and 
of  Queens  and  Kings  of  Norway,  and  of  the  coming  of  the 
white  Christ,  are  all  in  the  "Njala."  That  and  the  other 
Sagas  would  bear  being  shortened  for  general  readers  \  once 
they  were  all  that  the  people  had  by  way  of  books,  and 
they  liked  them  long.  But,  shortened  or  not,  they  are 
brave  books  for  men,  for  the  world  is  a  place  of  battle  still, 
and  life  is  war.  These  old  heroes  knew  it,  and  did  not 
shirk  it,  but  fought  it  out,  and  left  honourable  names 
and  a  glory  that  widens  year  by  year.  For  the  story  of 
Njal  and  Gunnar  and  Skarphedin  was  told  by  Captain 
Speedy  to  the  guards  of  Theodore,  King  of  Abyssinia. 
They  liked  it  well ;  and   with  queer  altered  names  and 


152  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE, 

changes  of  the  tale,  that  Saga  will  be  told  in  Abyssinia, 
and  thence  carried  all  through  Africa  where  white  men 
have  never  wandered.  So  wide,  so  long-enduring  a  renown 
could  be  given  by  a  nameless  Sagaman. 


CHARLES    KINGSLEY. 

WHEN  I  was  very  young,  a  distinguished  Review 
was  still  younger.  I  remember  reading  one  of 
the  earliest  numbers,  being  then  myself  a  boy  of  ten,  and 
coming  on  a  review  of  a  novel.  Never,  as  it  seemed 
to  me,  or  seems  to  my  memory,  was  a  poor  novel  more 
heavily  handled  :  and  yet  I  felt  that  the  book  must  be 
a  book  to  read  on  the  very  earliest  opportunity.  It  was 
"  Westward  Ho  ! "  the  most  famous,  and  perhaps  the 
best  novel,  of  Charles  Kingsley.  Often  one  has  read  it 
since,  and  it  is  an  example  of  those  large,  rich,  well-fed 
romances,  at  which  you  can  cut  and  come  again,  as  it  were, 
laying  it  down,  and  taking  it  up  on  occasion,  with  the 
certainty  of  being  excited,  amused — and  preached  at. 

Lately  I  have  re-read  "  Westward  Ho  ! "  and  some  of 
Kingsley's  other  books,  "  Hypatia,"  "  Hereward  the  Wake," 
and  the  poems,  over  again.  The  old  pleasure  in  them  is 
not  gone  indeed,  but  it  is  modified.  One  must  be  a  boy 
to  think  Kingsley  a  humourist.  At  the  age  of  twelve  or 
ten  you  take  the  comic  passages  which  he  conscientiously 
provides,  without  being  vexed  or  offended ;  you  take  them 
merely  in  the  way  of  business.  Better  things  are  coming  : 
struggles  wiih  the  Inquisition,  storms  at  sea,  duels,  the 


154  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Armada,  wanderings  in  the  Lotus  land  of  the  tropical  west ; 
and  for  the  sake  of  all  this  a  boy  puts  up  good-naturedly 
with  Kingsley's  humour.  Perhaps  he  even  grins  over 
Amyas  "burying  alternately  his  face  in  the  pasty  and 
the  pasty  in  his  face,"  or  he  tries  to  feel  diverted  by  the 
Elizabethan  waggeries  of  Frank.  But  there  is  no  fun  in 
them — they  are  mechanical ;  they  are  worse  than  the 
humours  of  Scott's  Sir  Percy  Shafto,  which  are  not  fine. 

The  same  sense  of  everything  not  being  quite  so  excellent 
as  one  remembered  it  haunts  one  in  "Hereward  the  Wake, 
the  Last  of  the  English."  Kingsley  calls  him  "  the  Last 
of  the  English,"  but  he  is  really  the  first  of  the  literary 
Vikings,  In  the  essay  on  the  Sagas  here  I  have  tried  to 
show,  very  imperfectly,  what  the  Norsemen  were  actually 
like.  They  caught  Kingsley's  fancy,  and  his  "  Hereward," 
though  born  on  English  soil,  is  really  Norse — not  English. 
But  Kingsley  did  not  write  about  the  Vikings,  nor  about 
his  Elizabethan  heroes  in  "  Westward  Ho ! "  in  a  perfectly 
simple,  straightforward  way.  He  was  always  thinking  of 
our  own  times  and  referring  to  them.  That  is  why  even 
the  rather  ruffianly  Hereward  is  so  great  an  enemy  of 
saints  and  monks.  That  is  why,  in  "  Hypatia "  (which 
opens  so  well),  we  have  those  prodigiously  dull,  stupid, 
pedantic,  and  conceited  reflections  of  Raphael  Ben  Ezra. 
That  is  why,  in  all  Kingsley's  novels,  he  is  perpetually 
exciting  himself  in  defence  of  marriage  and  the  family  life, 
as  if  any  monkish  ideas  about  the  blessedness  of  bachelor- 
hood were  ever  likely  to  drive  the  great  Anglo-Saxon  race 
into  convents  and  monasteries.  That  is  the  very  last  thing 
we  have  to  be  afraid  of;  but  Kingsley  was  afraid  of  it,  and 
was  eternally  attacking  everything  Popish  and  monkish. 


CHARLES  KINGSLEY.  155 

Boys  and  young  people, then,  can  read  "  Westward  Ho!" 
and  "  Hypatia,"  and  "  Hereward  the  Wake,"  with  far  more, 
pleasure  than  their  elders.  They  hurry  on  with  the  ad- 
ventures, and  do  not  stop  to  ask  what  the  moralisings 
mean.  They  forgive  the  humour  of  Kingsley  because  it 
is  well  meant.  They  get,  in  short,  the  real  good  of  this 
really  great  and  noble  and  manly  and  blundering  genius. 
They  take  pleasure  in  his  love  of  strong  men,  gallant  fights, 
desperate  encounters  with  human  foes,  with  raging  seas, 
with  pestilence,  or  in  haunted  forests.  For  in  all  that  is 
good  of  his  talent — in  his  courage,  his  frank  speech,  his 
love  of  sport,  his  clear  eyes,  his  devotion  to  field  and  wood, 
river,  moor,  sea,  and  storms — Kingsley  is  a  boy.  He  has 
the  brave,  rather  hasty,  and  not  over  well-informed  enthusiasm 
of  sixteen,  for  persons  and  for  causes.  He  saw  an  opponent 
(it  might  be  Father  Newman) :  his  heart  lusted  for  a  fight ; 
he  called  his  opponent  names,  he  threw  his  cap  into  the 
ring,  he  took  his  coat  off,  he  fought,  he  got  a  terrible 
scientific  drubbing.  It  was  like  a  sixth-form  boy  matching 
himself  against  the  champion.  And  then  he  bore  no  malice. 
He  took  his  defeat  bravely.  Nay,  are  we  not  left  with  a 
confused  feeling  that  he  was  not  far  in  the  wrong,  though 
he  had  so  much  the  worse  of  the  fight  ? 

Such  was  Kingsley  :  a  man  with  a  boy's  heart ;  a  hater 
of  cruelty  and  injustice,  and  also  with  a  brave,  indomitable 
belief  that  his  own  country  and  his  own  cause  were 
generally  in  the  right,  whatever  the  quarrel.  He  loved 
England  like  a  mistress,  and  hated  her  enemies,  Spain  and 
the  Pope,  though  even  in  them  he  saw  the  good.  He 
is  for  ever  scolding  the  Spanish  for  their  cruelties  to  the 
Indians,  but  he  defends  our  doings  to  the  Irish,  which  (at 


156  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

that  time)  were  neither  more  nor  less  oppressive  than  the 
Spanish  performances  in  America.  "  Go  it,  our  side  ! "  you 
always  hear  this  good  Kingsley  crying ;  and  one's  heart  goes 
out  to  him  for  it,  in  an  age  when  everybody  often  proves  his 
own  country  to  be  in  the  wrong. 

Simple,  brave,  resolute,  manly,  a  little  given  to  "robus- 
tiousness,"  Kingsley  transfigured  all  these  qualities  by 
possessing  the  soul  and  the  heart  of  a  poet.  He  was 
not  a  very  great  poet,  indeed,  but  a  true  poet — one  of 
the  very  small  band  who  are  cut  off,  by  a  gulf  that  can 
never  be  passed,  from  mere  writers  of  verse,  however 
clever,  educated,  melodious,  ingenious,  amiable,  and 
refined.  He  had  the  real  spark  of  fire,  the  true  note; 
though  the  spark  might  seldom  break  into  flame,  and  the 
note  was  not  always  clear.  Never  let  us  confuse  true  poets 
with  writers  of  verse,  still  less  with  writers  of  "poetic 
prose."  Kingsley  wrote  a  great  deal  of  that — perhaps  too 
much :  his  descriptions  of  scenes  are  not  always  as  good 
r.s  in  Hereward's  ride  round  the  Fens,  or  when  the  tyll, 
Spanish  galleon  staggers  from  the  revenge  of  man  to  the 
vengeance  of  God,  to  her  doom  through  the  mist,  to  her 
rest  in  the  sea.  Perhaps  only  a  poet  could  have  written 
that  prose ;  it  is  certain  no  writer  of  "  poetic  prose  "  could 
have  written  Kingsley's  poems. 

His  songs  are  his  best  things ;  they  really  are  songs, 
not  merely  lyric  poems.  They  have  the  merit  of  being 
truly  popular,  whether  they  are  romantic,  like  "  The  Sands 
o'  Dee,"  which  actually  reproduces  the  best  qualities  of 
the  old  ballad;  or  whether  they  are  pathetic,  like  the 
"Doll's  Song,"  in  "Water  Babies";  or  whether  they 
attack  an  abuse,  as  in  the  song  of  "The  Merry  Brown 


CHARLES  KINGSLEY.  157 

Hares  " ;  or  whether  they  soar  higher,  as  in  "  Deep,  deep 
Love,  within  thine  own  abyss  abiding";  or  whether  they 
are  mere  noble  nonsense,  as  in  "  Lorraine  Loree  "  : — 

"  She  mastered  young  Vindictive ;  oh,  the  gallant  lass  was  she, 
And  kept  him  straight  and  won  the  race,  as  near  as  near  could  be ; 
But  he  killed  her  at  the  brook  against  a  pollard  willow  tree  ; 
Oh,  he  killed  her  at  the  brook,  the  brute,  for  all  the  world  to  see, 
And  no  one  but  the  baby  cried  for  poor  Lorraine  Loree." 

The  truth  about  Charles  Kingsley  seems  to  be  that  he 
rather  made  a  brave  and  cheery  noise  in  this  night-battle 
of  modern  life,  than  that  he  directed  any  movement  of 
forces.  He  kept  cheering,  as  it  were,  and  waving  his  sword 
with  a  contagious  enthusiasm.  Being  a  poet,  and  a  man 
both  of  heart  and  of  sentiment,  he  was  equally  attached 
to  the  best  things  of  the  old  world  and  to  the  best  of  the 
new  world,  as  far  as  one  can  forecast  what  it  is  to  be. 
He  loved  the  stately  homes  of  England,  the  ancient 
graduated  order  of  society,  the  sports  of  the  past,  the 
mihtary  triumphs,  the  patriotic  glories.  But  he  was  also 
on  the  side  of  the  poor :  as  "  Parson  Lot "  he  attempted 
to  be  a  Christian  Socialist. 

Now,  the  Socialists  are  the  people  who  want  to  take 
everything;  the  Christians  are  the  persons  who  do  not 
want  to  give  more  than  they  find  convenient.  Kingsley 
himself  was  ready  to  give,  and  did  give,  his  time,  his 
labour,  his  health,  and  probably  his  money,  to  the  poor. 
But  he  was  by  no  means  minded  that  they  should  swallow 
up  the  old  England  with  church  and  castle,  manor-house 
and  tower,  wealth,  beauty,  learning,  refinement.  The  man 
who  wrote  *'  Alton  Locke,"  the  story  of  the  starved  tailor- 
poet,  was  the  man  who  nearly  wept  when  he  heard  a  fox 


158  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

bark,  and  reflected  that  the  days  of  fox-hunting  were 
numbered.  He  had  a  poet's  politics,  Colonel  Newcome's 
politics.  He  was  for  England,  for  the  poor,  for  the  rich, 
for  the  storied  houses  of  the  chivalrous  past,  for  the  cottage, 
for  the  hall ;  and  was  dead  against  the  ideas  of  Manchester, 
and  of  Mr.  John  Bright.  "  My  father,"  he  says  in  a  letter, 
"  would  have  put  his  hand  to  a  spade  or  an  axe  with  any 
man,  and  so  could  I  pretty  well,  too,  when  I  was  in  my 
prime;  and  my  eldest  son  is  now  working  with  his  own 
hands  at  farming,  previous  to  emigrating  to  South  America, 
where  he  will  do  the  drudgery  of  his  own  cattle-pens  and 
sheepfolds;  and  if  I  were  twenty-four  and  unmarried  I 
would  go  out  there  too,  and  work  like  an  Englishman,  and 
live  by  the  sweat  of  my  brow." 

This  was  the  right  side  of  his  love  of  the  Vikings ;  it  was 
thus  they  lived,  when  not  at  war — thus  that  every  gentleman 
who  has  youth  and  health  should  work,  winning  new  worlds 
for  his  class,  in  place  of  this  miserable,  over-crowded, 
brawling  England.  This,  I  think,  was,  or  should  have 
been,  the  real  lesson  and  message  of  Kingsley  for  the 
generations  to  come.  Like  Scott  the  scion  of  an  old 
knightly  line,  he  had  that  drop  of  wild  blood  which  drives 
men  from  town  into  the  air  and  the  desert,  wherever  there 
are  savage  lands  to  conquer,  beasts  to  hunt,  and  a  hardy 
life  to  be  lived.  But  he  was  the  son  of  a  clergyman,  and  a 
clergyman  himself.  The  spirit  that  should  have  gone  into 
action  went  into  talking,  preaching,  writing — all  sources  of 
great  pleasure  to  thousands  of  people,  and  so  not  wasted. 
Yet  these  were  not  the  natural  outlets  of  Kingsley's  life : 
he  should  have  been  a  soldier,  or  an  explorer ;  at  least,  we 
may  believe  that  he  would  have  preferred  such  fortune. 


CHARLES  KINGSLEY,  159 

He  did  his  best,  the  best  he  knew,  and  it  is  all  on  the 
side  of  manliness,  courage,  kindness.  Perhaps  he  tried  too 
many  things — science,  history,  fairy  tales,  religious  and 
political  discussions,  romance,  poetry.  Poetry  was  what  he 
did  best,  romance  next;  his  science  and  his  history  are 
entertaining,  but  without  authority. 

This,  when  one  reads  it  again,  seems  a  cold,  unfriendly 
estimate  of  a  man  so  ardent  and  so  genuine,  a  writer  so 
vivacious  and  courageous  as  Kingsley.  Even  the  elderly 
reviewer  bears  to  him,  and  to  his  brother  Henry,  a  debt  he 
owes  to  few  of  their  generation.  The  truth  is  we  should  read 
Kingsley ;  we  must  not  criticise  him.  We  must  accept  him 
and  be  glad  of  him,  as  we  accept  a  windy,  sunny  autumn 
day — beautiful  and  blusterous — to  be  enjoyed  and  struggled 
with.  If  once  we  stop  and  reflect,  and  hesitate,  he  seems 
to  preach  too  much,  and  with  a  confidence  which  his 
knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  history  does  not  justify. 
To  be  at  one  with  Kingsley  we  must  be  boys  again,  and 
that  momentary  change  cannot  but  be  good  for  us.  Soon 
enough — too  soon — we  shall  drop  back  on  manhood,  and 
on  all  the  difficulties  and  dragons  that  Kingsley  drove  away 
by  a  blast  on  his  chivalrous  and  cheery  horn. 


CHARLES    LEVER: 

HIS  BOOKS,   ADVENTURES  AND  MISFORTUNES. 

SURELY  it  is  a  pleasant  thing  that  there  are  books,  like 
other  enjoyments,  for  all  ages.  You  would  not  have 
a  boy  prefer  whist  to  fives,  nor  tobacco  to  toffee,  nor 
Tolstoi  to  Charles  Lever.  The  ancient  sreckoned  Tyrtaeus 
a  fine  poet,  not  that  he  was  particularly  melodious  or  re- 
flective, but  that  he  gave  men  heart  to  fight  for  their  country. 
Charles  Lever  has  done  as  much.  In  his  biography,  by 
Mr.  Fitzpatrick,  it  is  told  that  a  widow  lady  had  but  one 
son,  and  for  him  she  obtained  an  appointment  at  Woolwich. 
The  boy  was  timid  and  nervous,  and  she  fancied  that 
she  must  find  for  him  some  other  profession — perhaps 
that  of  literature.  But  he  one  day  chanced  on  Lever's 
novels,  and  they  put  so  much  heart  into  him  that  his 
character  quite  altered,  and  he  became  the  bravest  of  the 
brave. 

Lever  may  not  do  as  much  for  every  one,  but  he  does 
teach  contempt  of  danger,  or  rather,  delight  in  it :  a  gay, 
spontaneous,  boyish  kind  of  courage — Irish  courage  at  its 
best  We  may  get  more  good  from  that  than  harm  from  all 
his  tales  of  much  punch  and  many  drinking  bouts.  These 
are  no  longer   in   fashion  and  are  not  very  gay  reading, 


CHARLES  LEVER.  i6i 

perhaps,  but  his  stories  and  songs,  his  duels  and  battles 
and  hunting  scenes  are  as  merry  and  as  good  as  ever. 
Wild  as  they  seem  in  the  reading,  they  are  not  far  from  the 
truth,  as  may  be  gathered  out  of  "  Barrington's  Memoirs." 
and  their  tales  of  the  reckless  Irish  life  some  eighty  years 
ago. 

There  were  two  men  in  Charles  Lever — a  glad  man  and 
a  sad  man.  The  gaiety  was  for  his  youth,  when  he  poured 
out  his  "  Lorrequers "  and  "  O'Malleys,"  all  the  mirth  and 
memories  of  his  boyhood,  all  the  tales  of  fighting  and 
feasting  he  gleaned  from  battered,  seasoned  old  warriors,  like 
Major  Monsoon.  Even  then,  Mr.  Thackeray,  who  knew 
him,  and  liked  and  laughed  at  him,  recognised  through  his 
merriment  "  the  fund  of  sadness  beneath."  "  The  author's 
character  is  not  humour,  but  sentiment  ....  extreme 
delicacy,  sweetness  and  kindliness  of  heart.  The  spirits  are 
mostly  artificial,  the  fond  is  sadness,  as  appears  to  me  to  be 
that  of  most  Irish  writing  and  people."  Even  in  "  Charles 
O'Malley,"  what  a  true,  dark  picture  that  is  of  the  duel 
beside  the  broad,  angry  river  on  the  level  waste  under  the 
wide  grey  sky  !  Charles  has  shot  his  opponent.  Bodkin, 
and  with  Considine,  his  second,  is  making  his  escape. 
'*  Considine  cried  out  suddenly,  '  Too  infamous,  by  Jove : 
we  are  murdered  men  ! ' " 

"  *  What  do  you  mean  ? '  said  I. 

"  '  Don't  you  see  that  ? '  said  he,  pointing  to  something 
black  which  floated  from  a  pole  at  the  opposite  side  of  the 
river. 

"•Yes;  what  is  it?' 

"'It's  his  coat  they've  put  upon  an  oar,  to  show  the 
people  he's  killed — that's  all.     Every  man  here's  his  tenant ; 

w.  L — 1.  1 1 


i62  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

and  look  there !  they're  not  giving  us  much  doubt  as  to  their 
intentions,' 

"Here  a  tremendous  yell  burst  forth  from  the  mass  of 
people  along  the  shore,  which,  rising  to  a  terrific  cry,  sank 
gradually  down  to  a  low  wailing,  then  rose  and  fell  several 
times,  as  the  Irish  death-cry  filled  the  air,  and  rose  to 
heaven,  as  if  imploring  vengeance  on  a  murderer." 

Passages  like  this,  and  that  which  follows — the  dangerous 
voyage  through  the  storm  on  the  flooded  Shannon,  and 
through  the  reefs — are  what  Mr,  Thackeray  may  have  had  in 
his  mind  when  he  spoke  of  Lever's  underlying  melancholy. 
Like  other  men  with  very  high  spirits,  he  had  hours  of 
gloom,  and  the  sadness  and  the  thoughtfulness  that  were  in 
him  came  forth  then  and  informed  his  later  books.  These 
are  far  more  carefully  wTitten,  far  more  cunningly  con- 
structed, than  the  old  chapters  written  from  month  to  month 
as  the  fit  took  him,  with  no  more  plan  or  premeditation 
than  "Pickwick."  But  it  is  the  early  stories  that  we  re- 
member, and  that  he  lives  by — the  pages  thrown  offata  heat, 
when  he  was  a  lively  doctor  with  few  patients,  and  was  not 
over-attentive  to  them.  These  were  the  days  of  Harry 
Lorrequer  and  Tom  Burke ;  characters  that  ran  away  with 
him,  and  took  their  own  path  through  a  merry  world  of 
diversion.  Like  the  knights  in  Sir  Thomas  Malory,  these 
heroes  "  ride  at  adventure,"  ride  amazing  horses  that  dread 
no  leap,  be  it  an  Irish  stone  wall  on  a  mountain  crest,  or  be 
it  the  bayonets  of  a  French  square. 

Mr.  Lever's  biographer  has  not  been  wholly  successful 
in  pleasing  the  critics,  and  he  does  not  seem  to  affect  very 
critical  airs  himself,  but  he  tells  a  straightforward  tale.  The 
life  of  Charles  Lever  is  the  natural  commentary  on  his 


CHARLES  LEVER.  163 

novels.  He  was  born  at  Dublin  in  1806,  the  son  of  a 
builder  or  architect.  At  school  he  was  very  much  flogged, 
and  the  odds  are  that  he  deserved  these  attentions,  for  he 
had  high  spirits  beyond  the  patience  of  dominies.  Hand- 
some, merry  and  clever,  he  read  novels  in  school  hours, 
wore  a  ring,  and  set  up  as  a  dandy.  Even  then  he  was  in 
love  with  the  young  lady  whom  he  married  in  the  end.  At 
a  fight  with  boys  of  another  school,  he  and  a  friend  placed 
a  mine  under  the  ground  occupied  by  the  enemy,  and 
blew  them,  more  or  less,  into  the  air.  Many  an  eyebrow 
was  singed  off  on  that  fatal  day,  when,  for  the  only  time, 
this  romancer  of  the  wars  **  smelled  powder."  He  afterwards 
pleaded  for  his  party  before  the  worthy  police  magistrate, 
and  showed  great  promise  as  a  barrister.  At  Trinity  College, 
Dublin,  he  was  full  of  his  fun,  made  ballads,  sang  them 
through  the  streets  in  disguise  (like  Fergusson,  the  Scottish 
poet),  and  one  night  collected  thirty  shillings  in  coppers. 

The  original  of  Frank  Webber,  in  "  Charles  O'Malley," 
was  a  chum  of  his,  and  he  took  part  in  the  wonderful 
practical  jokes  which  he  ha*;  made  immortal  in  that 
novel. 

From  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  Lever  went  to  Gottingen, 
where  he  found  fun  and  fighting  enough  among  the  German 
students.  From  that  hour  he  became  a  citizen  of  the 
world,  or,  at  least,  of  Europe,  and  perhaps,  like  the  prophets, 
was  most  honoured  when  out  of  his  own  country.  He 
returned  to  Dublin  and  took  his  degree  in  medicine,  after 
playing  a  famous  practical  joke.  A  certain  medical  pro- 
fessor was  wont  to  lecture  in  bed.  One  night  he  left  town 
unexpectedly.  Lever,  by  chance,  came  early  to  lecture, 
found  the  Professor  absent,  slipped  into  his  bed,  put  on  his 


i64  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

nightcap,  and  took  the  class  himself.  On  another  day  he 
was  standing  outside  the  Foundling  Hospital  with  a  friend, 
a  small  man.  Now,  a  kind  of  stone  cradle  for  foundlings 
was  built  outside  the  door,  and,  when  a  baby  was  placed 
therein,  a  bell  rang.  Lever  lifted  up  his  friend,  popped  him 
into  the  cradle,  and  had  the  joy  of  seeing  the  promising 
infant  picked  out  by  the  porter. 

It  seems  a  queer  education  for  a  man  of  letters ;  but, 
like  Sir  Walter  Scott  when  revelling  in  Liddesdale,  he  "  was 
making  himself  all  the  time."  He  was  collecting  myriads  of 
odd  experiences  and  treasures  of  anecdotes ;  he  was  learn- 
ing to  know  men  of  all  sorts ;  and  later,  as  a  country  doctor, 
he  had  experiences  of  mess  tables,  of  hunting,  and  of  all 
the  ways  of  his  remarkable  countrymen.  When  cholera 
visited  his  district  he  stuck  to  his  work  like  a  man  of  heart 
and  courage.  But  the  usual  tasks  of  a  country  doctor 
wearied  him;  he  neglected  them,  he  became  unpopular 
with  the  authorities,  he  married  his  first  love  and  returned 
to  Brussels,  where  he  practised  as  a  physician.  He  had 
already  begun  his  first  notable  book,  "  Harry  Lorrequer," 
in  the  University  Magazim.  It  is  merely  a  string  of  Irish 
and  other  stories,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent — a  picture 
gallery  full  of  portraits  of  priests,  soldiers,  peasants  and 
odd  characters.  The  plot  is  of  no  importance ;  we  are 
not  interested  in  Harry's  love  affairs,  but  in  his  scrapes, 
adventures,  duels  at  home  and  abroad.  He  fights  people 
by  mistake  whom  he  does  not  know  by  sight,  he  appears  on 
parade  with  his  face  blackened,  he  wins  large  piles  at  trente 
et  quarante,  he  disposes  of  coopers  of  claret  and  bowls  of 
punch,  and  the  sheep  on  a  thousand  hills  provide  him  with 
devilled  kidneys.     The  critics  and  the  authors  thought  little 


CHARLES  LEVER.  165 

of  the  merry  medley,  but  the  public  enjoyed  it,  and  defied  the 
reviewers.  One  paper  preferred  the  book  to  a  wilderness 
of  "  Pickwicks  "  ;  and  as  this  opinion  was  advertised  every- 
where by  M'Glashan,  the  publisher,  Mr.  Dickens  was  very 
much  annoyed  indeed.  Authors  are  easily  annoyed.  But 
Lever  writes  ut placeat  pueris,  and  there  was  a  tremendous 
fight  at  Rugby  between  two  boys,  the  "Slogger  Williams  "  and 
"  Tom  Brown  "  of  the  period,  for  the  possession  of  "  Harry 
Lorrequer."  When  an  author  has  the  boys  of  England 
on  his  side,  he  can  laugh  at  the  critics.  Not  that  Lever 
laughed:  he,  too,  was  easily  vexed,  and  much  depressed, 
when  the  reviews  assailed  him.  Next  he  began  "  Charles 
O'Malley";  and  if  any  man  reads  this  essay  who  has 
not  read  the  *'  Irish  Dragoon,"  let  him  begin  at  once. 
"  O'Malley  "  is  what  you  can  recommend  to  a  friend.  Here 
is  every  species  of  diversion  :  duels  and  steeplechase >, 
practical  jokes  at  college  (good  practical  jokes,  not  booby 
traps  and  apple-pie  beds) ;  here  is  fighting  in  the  Peninsula. 
If  any  student  is  in  doubt,  let  him  try  chapter  xiv. — the 
battle  on  the  Douro.  This  is,  indeed,  excellent  military 
writing,  and  need  not  fear  comparison  as  art  with  Napier's 
famous  history.  Lever  has  warmed  to  his  work  ;  his  heart 
is  in  it;  he  had  the  best  information  from  an  eye-witness; 
and  the  brief  beginning,  on  the  peace  of  nature  before  the 
strife  of  men,  is  admirably  poetical. 

To  reach  the  French,  under  Soult,  Wellesley  had  to  cross 
the  deep  and  rapid  Douro,  in  face  of  their  fire,  and  without 
regular  transport.  "  He  dared  the  deed.  What  must  have 
been  his  confidence  in  the  men  he  commanded  !  what  must 
have  been  his  reliance  on  his  own  genius  ! " 

You  hold  your  breath  as  you  read,   while  English  and 


i66  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Germans  charge,  till  at  last  the  field  is  won,  and  the  dust 
of  the  French  columns  retreating  in  the  distance  blows 
down  the  road  to  Spain. 

The  Great  Duke  read  this  passage,  and  marvelled  how 
Lever  knew  certain  things  that  he  tells.  He  learned  this, 
and  much  more,  the  humours  of  war,  from  the  original  of 
Major  Monsoon.  Falstaff  is  alone  in  the  literature  of  the 
world,  but  if  ever  there  came  a  later  Falstaff,  Monsoon  was 
the  man.  And  where  have  you  such  an  Irish  Sancho  Panza 
as  Micky  Free,  that  independent  minstrel,  or  such  an  Irish 
Di  Vernon  as  Baby  Blake  ?  The  critics  may  praise  Lever's 
thoughtful  and  careful  later  novels  as  they  will,  but  "Charles 
O'Malley  "  will  always  be  the  pattern  of  a  military  romance. 
The  anecdote  of  "  a  virtuous  weakness  "  in  O'Shaughnessy's 
father's  character  would  alone  make  the  fortune  of  many 
a  story.  The  truth  is,  it  is  not  easy  to  lay  down  "  Charles 
O'Malley,"  to  leave  off  reading  it,  and  get  on  with  the 
account  of  Lever. 

His  excellent  and  delightful  novel  scarcely  received  one 
favourable  notice  from  the  press.  This  may  have  been 
because  it  was  so  popular ;  but  Lever  became  so  nervous 
that  he  did  not  like  to  look  at  the  papers.  ^V'hen  he  went 
back  to  Dublin  and  edited  a  magazine  there,  he  was  more 
fiercely  assailed  than  ever.  It  is  difficult  for  an  Irishman 
to  write  about  the  Irish,  or  for  a  Scot  to  write  about  the 
Scottish,  without  hurting  the  feelings  of  his  countrymen. 
While  their  literary  brethren  are  alive  they  are  not  very  dear 
to  the  newspaper  scribes  of  these  gallant  nations ;  and  thus 
Jeffrey  was  more  severe  to  Scott  than  he  need  have  been, 
while  the  Irish  press,  it  appears,  made  an  onslaught  on  Lever. 
Mr.  Thackeray  met  Lever  in  Dublin,  and  he  mentions  this 


CHARLES  LEVER.  167 

unkind  behaviour.  "  Lorrequer's  military  propensities  have 
been  objected  to  strongly  by  his  squeamish  Hibernian 
brethren.  .  .  .  But  is  Lorrequer  the  only  man  in  Ireland 
who  is  fond  of  military  spectacles  ?  Why  does  the  Nation 
publish  these  edifying  and  Christian  war  songs  ?  .  .  .  And 
who  is  it  that  prates  about  the  Irish  at  Waterloo,  and  the 
Irish  at  Fontenoy,  and  the  Irish  at  Seringapatam,  and 
the  Irish  at  Timbuctoo?  If  Mr.  O'Connell,  like  a  wise 
rhetorician,  chooses,  and  very  properly,  to  flatter  the 
national  military  passion,  why  not  Harry  Lorrequer?" 

Why  not,  indeed?  But  Mr.  Lever  was  a  successful 
Irishman  of  letters,  and  a  good  many  other  Irish  gentlemen 
of  letters,  honest  Doolan  and  his  friends,  were  not  suc- 
cessful.    That  is  the  humour  of  it. 

Though  you,  my  youthful  reader,  if  I  have  one,  do  not 
detest  Jones  because  he  is  in  the  Eleven,  nor  Brown 
because  he  has  "  got  his  cap,"  nor  Smith  because  he  does 
Greek  Iambics  like  Sophocles ;  though  you  rather  admire 
and  applaud  these  champions,  you  may  feel  very  differently 
when  you  come  to  thirty  years  or  more,  and  see  other  men 
doing  what  you  cannot  do,  and  gaining  prizes  beyond  your 
grasp.  And  then,  if  you  are  a  reviewer,  you  "will  find 
fault  with  a  book  for  what  it  does  not  give,"  as  thus,  to  take 
Mr.  Thackeray's  example  : — 

"Lady  Smigsmag's  novel  is  amusing,  but  lamentably 
deficient  in  geological  information."  "  Mr.  Lever's  novels 
are  trashy  and  worthless,  for  his  facts  are  not  borne  out 
by  any  authority,  and  he  gives  us  no  information  about 
the  political  state  of  Ireland.  '  Oh  !  our  country,  our  green 
and  beloved,  our  beautiful  and  oppressed  ? ' "  and  so  forth. 

It  was  not  altogether  a  happy  time  that  Lever  passed  at 


i68  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

home.  Not  only  did  his  native  critics  belabour  him  most 
ungrudgingly  for  "  Tom  Burke,"  that  vivid  and  chivalrous 
romance,  but  he  made  enemies  of  authors.  He  edited  a 
magazine  !  Is  not  that  enough  ?  He  wearied  of  wading 
through  waggon-loads  of  that  pure  unmitigated  rubbish 
which  people  are  permitted  to  "  shoot  "  at  editorial  doors. 
How  much  dust  there  is  in  it  to  how  few  pearls !  He 
did  not  return  MSS.  punctually  and  politely.  The  office 
cat  could  edit  the  volunteered  contributions  of  many  a 
magazine,  but  Lever  was  even  more  casual  and  careless  than 
an  experienced  office  cat.  He  grew  crabbed,  and  tried 
to  quarrel  with  Mr.  Thackeray  for  that  delightful  parody 
"Phil  Fogarty,"  nearly  as  good  as  a  genuine  story  by 
Lever. 

Beset  by  critics,  burlesqued  by  his  friend,  he  changed 
his  style  (Mr.  Fitzpatrick  tells  us)  and  became  more 
sober — and  not  so  entertaining.  He  actually  published 
a  criticism  of  Beyle,  of  Stendhal,  that  psychological 
prig,  the  darling  of  culture  and  of  M.  Paul  Bourget. 
Harry  Lorrequer  on  Stendhal ! — it  beggars  belief.  He 
nearly  fought  a  duel  with  the  gentleman  who  is  said  to 
have  suggested  Mr.  Pecksniff  to  Dickens !  Yet  they  call 
his  early  novels  improbable.  Nothing  could  be  less 
plausible  than  a  combat  between  Harry  Lorrequer  and  a 
gentleman  who,  even  remotely,  resembled  the  father  of 
Cherry  and  Merry. 

Lever  went  abroad  again,  and  in  Florence  or  the  Baths 
of  Lucca,  in  Trieste  or  Spezia,  he  passed  the  rest  of  his 
life.  He  saw  the  Italian  revolution  of  1848,  and  it  added 
to  his  melancholy.  This  is  plain  from  one  of  his  novels 
with  a  curious  history — "Con  Cregan."    He  wrote  it  at 


CHARLES  LEVER.  169 

the  same  time  as  "The  Daltons,"  and  he  did  not  sign 
it.  The  reviewers  praised  "  Con  Cregan  "  at  the  expense 
of  the  signed  work,  rejoicing  that  Lever,  as  "  The  Daltons  " 
proved,  was  exhausted,  and  that  a  new  Irish  author,  the 
author  of  "  Con  Cregan,"  was  coming  to  ech'pse  him.  In 
short)  he  ecHpsed  himself,  and  he  did  not  like  it.  His 
right  hand  was  jealous  of  what  his  left  hand  did.  It  seems 
odd  that  any  human  being,  however  dull  and  envious, 
failed  to  detect  Lever  in  the  rapid  and  vivacious  adventures 
of  his  Irish  "  Gil  Bias,"  hero  of  one  of  the  very  best  among 
his  books,  a  piece  not  unworthy  of  Dumas.  "  Con  "  was 
written  after  midnight,  "  The  Daltons  "  in  the  morning ; 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  which  set  of  hours  was  more 
favourable  to  Lever's  genius.  Of  course  he  liked  "  The 
Daltons "  best ;  of  all  people,  authors  appear  to  be  their 
own  worst  critics. 

It  is  not  possible  even  to  catalogue  Lever's  later  books 
here.  Again  he  drove  a  pair  of  novels  abreast — "The 
Dodds  "  and  "  Sir  Jasper  Carew  " — which  contain  some  of 
his  most  powerful  situations.  "When  almost  an  old  man, 
sad,  outworn  in  body,  straitened  in  circumstances,  he  still 
produced  excellent  tales  in  this  later  manner — "  Lord 
Kilgobbin,"  "That  Boy  of  Norcott's,"  "A  Day's  Ride," 
and  many  more.  These  are  the  thoughts  of  a  tired  man 
of  the  world,  who  has  done  and  seen  everything  that  such 
men  see  and  do.  He  says  that  he  grew  fat,  and  bald, 
and  grave ;  he  wrote  for  the  grave  and  the  bald,  not  for 
the  happier  world  which  is  young,  and  curly,  and  merry. 
He  died  at  last,  it  is  said,  in  his  sleep ;  and  it  is  added 
that  he  did  what  Harry  Lorrequer  would  not  have  done 
— he  left  his  affairs  in  perfect  order. 


I/O  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Lever  lived  in  an  age  so  full  of  great  novelists  that, 
perhaps,  he  is  not  prized  as  he  should  be.  Dickens, 
Bulwer,  Thackeray,  Trollope,  George  Eliot,  were  his  con- 
temporaries. But  when  we  turn  back  and  read  him  once 
more,  we  see  that  Lever,  too,  was  a  worthy  member  of  that 
famous  company—  a  romancer  for  boys  and  men. 


THE    POEMS    OF   SIR   WALTER   SCOTT. 

YESTERDAY,  as  the  sun  was  very  bright,  and  there 
was  no  wind,  I  took  a  fishing-rod  on  chance  and 
Scott's  poems,  and  rowed  into  the  middle  of  St.  Mary's 
Loch.  Every  hill,  every  tuft  of  heather  was  reflected  in 
the  lake,  as  in  a  silver  mirror.  There  was  no  sound  but 
the  lapping  of  the  water  against  the  boat,  the  cry  of  the 
blackcock  from  the  hill,  and  the  pleasant  plash  of  a  trout 
rising  here  and  there.  So  I  read  "T^^  Lay  of  the  Last 
Minstrel "  over  again,  here,  in  the  middle  of  the  scenes 
where  the  story  is  laid  and  where  the  fights  were  fought 
For  when  the  Baron  went  on  pilgrimage, 

"  And  took  with  hitn  this  elvish  page 
To  Mary's  Chapel  of  the  Lowes," 

it  was  to  the  ruined  chapel  here  that  he  came, 

"  For  there,  beside  our  Ladye's  lake, 
An  offering  he  had  sworn  to  make, 
And  he  would  pay  his  vows." 

But  his  enemy,  the  Lady  of  Branksome,  gathered  a  band 

"  Of  the  best  that  would  ride  at  her  command," 
and  they  all  canfte  from  the  country  round.     Branksome, 
where  the  lady  lived,  is  twenty  miles  off,  towards  the  south, 
across  the  ranges  of  lonely  green   hills.      Harden,  where 


172  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

her  ally,  Wat  of  Harden,  abode,  is  within  twelve  miles  ; 
and  Deloraine,  where  William  dwelt,  is  nearer  still;  and 
John  of  Thirlestane  had  his  square  tower  in  the  heather, 
"  where  victual  never  grew,"  on  Ettrick  Water,  within  ten 
miles.  These  gentlemen,  and  their  kinsfolk  and  retainers, 
being  at  feud  with  the  Kers,  tried  to  slay  the  Baron,  in  the 
Chapel  of  "  Lone  St.  Mary  of  the  Waves." 

"  They  were  three  hundred  spears  and  three. 
Through  Douglas  burn,  up  Yarrow  stream, 
Their  horses  prance,  their  lances  gleam. 
They  came  to  St.  Mary's  Lake  ere  day  ; 
But  the  chapel  was  void,  and  the  Baron  away. 
They  burned  the  chapel  for  very  rage. 
And  cursed  Lord  Cranstoun's  goblin- page." 

The  Scotts  were  a  rough  clan  enough  to  burn  a  holy  chapel 
because  they  failed  to  kill  their  enemy  within  the  sacred 
walls.  But,  as  I  read  again,  for  the  twentieth  time.  Sir 
Walter's  poem,  floating  on  the  lonely  breast  of  the  lake,  in 
the  heart  of  the  hills  where  Yarrow  flows,  among  the  little 
green  mounds  that  cover  the  ruins  of  chapel  and  castle  and 
lady's  bower,  I  asked  myself  whether  Sir  Walter  was  indeed 
a  great  and  delighful  poet,  or  whether  he  pleases  me  so 
much  because  I  was  born  in  his  own  country,  and  have 
one  drop  of  the  blood  of  his  Border  robbers  in  my  own 
veins  ? 

It  is  not  always  pleasant  to  go  back  to  places,  or  to  meet 
people,  whom  we  have  loved  well,  long  ago.  If  they  have 
changed  little,  we  have  changed  much.  The  little  boy, 
whose  first  book  of  poetry  was  "  The  Lady  of  the  Lake," 
and  who  naturally  believed  that  there  was  no  poet  like  Sir 
Walter,  is  sadly  changed  into  the  man  who  has  read  most 


THE  POEMS  OF  SIR   WALTER  SCOTT.        173 

of  the  world's  poets,  and  who  hears,  on  many  sides,  that 
Scott  is  outworn  and  doomed  to  deserved  oblivion.  Are 
they  right  or  wrong,  the  critics  who  tell  us,  occasionally,  that 
Scott's  good  novels  make  up  for  his  bad  verse,  or  that  verse 
and  prose,  all  must  go  ?  Pro  captu  lectoris,  by  the  reader's 
taste,  they  stand  or  fall ;  yet  even  pessimism  can  scarcely 
believe  that  the  Waverley  Novels  are  mortal.  They  were 
once  the  joy  of  every  class  of  minds  ;  they  cannot  cease  to 
be  the  joy  of  those  who  cling  to  the  permanently  good,  and 
can  understand  and  forgive  lapses,  carelessnesses,  and  the 
leisurely  literary  fashion  of  a  former  age.  But,  as  to  the 
poems,  many  give  them  up  who  cling  to  the  novels.  It 
does  not  follow  that  the  poems  are  bad.  In  the  first  place, 
they  are  of  two  kinds — lyric  and  narrative.  Now,  the  fashion 
of  narrative  in  poetry  has  passed  away  for  the  present.  The 
true  Greek  epics  are  read  by  a  few  in  Greek ;  by  perhaps 
fewer  still  in  translations.  But  so  determined  are  we  not 
to  read  tales  in  verse,  that  prose  renderings,  even  of  the  epics, 
nay,  even  of  the  Attic  dramas,  have  come  more  or  less 
into  vogue.  This  accounts  for  the  comparative  neglect  of 
Sir  Walter's  lays.  They  are  spoken  of  as  Waverley  Novels 
spoiled.  This  must  always  be  the  opinion  of  readers  who 
will  not  submit  to  stories  in  verse ;  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  the  verse  is  bad.  If  we  make  an  exception,  which  we 
must,  in  favour  of  Chaucer,  where  is  there  better  verse  in 
story  telling  in  the  whole  of  English  literature  ?  The 
readers  who  despise  "  Marmion,"  or  "  The  Lady  of  the 
Lake,"  do  so  because  they  dislike  stories  told  in  poetry. 
From  poetry  they  expect  other  things,  especially  a  lingering 
charm  and  magic  of  style,  a  reflective  turn,  "  criticism  of 
life."     These  things,  except  so  far  as  life  can  be  criticised 


174  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

in  action,  are  alien  to  the  Muse  of  narrative.  Stories  and 
pictures  are  all  she  offers :  Scott's  pictures,  cci-tainly,  are 
fresh  enough,  his  tales  are  excellent  enough,  his  manner  is 
sufficiently  direct.  To  take  examples :  every  one  who  wants 
to  read  Scott's  poetry  should  begin  with  the  "  Lay."  From 
opening  to  close  it  never  falters  : — 

"  Nine  and  twenty  knights  of  fame 

Hung  their  shields  in  Branksome  Hall  ; 
Nine  and  twenty  squires  of  name 
Brought  their  steeds  to  bower  from  stall, 
Nine  and  twenty  yeomen  tall 
Waited,  duteous,  on  them  all.  .  .  . 
Ten  of  them  were  sheathed  in  steel, 
With  belted  sword,  and  spur  on  heel ; 
They  quitted  not  their  harness  bright 
Neither  by  day  nor  yet  by  night : 

They  lay  down  to  rest 

With  corslet  laced, 
Pillowed  on  buckler  cold  and  hard  ; 

They  carved  at  the  meal 

With  gloves  of  steel, 
And  they  drank  the  red  wine  through  the  helmet  barred." 

Now,  is  not  that  a  brave  beginning  ?  Does  not  the  verse 
clank  and  chime  like  sword  sheath  on  spur,  like  the  bits 
of  champing  horses  ?  Then,  when  William  of  Deloraine 
is  sent  on  his  lonely  midnight  ride  across  the  haunted 
moors  and  wolds,  does  the  verse  not  gallop  like  the  heavy 
armoured  horse  ? 

**  Unchallenged,  thence  passed  Deloraine, 
To  ancient  Riddell's  fair  domain. 
Where  Aill,  from  mountains  freed, 
Down  from  the  lakes  did  raving  come  ; 
Each  wave  was  crested  with  tawny  foam. 
Like  the  mane  of  a  chestnut  steed 


THE  POEMS  OF  SIR   WALTER  SCOTT.       175 

In  vain  !  no  torrent,  deep  or  broad. 
Might  bar  the  bold  moss-trooper's  road ; 
At  the  first  plunge  the  horse  sunk  low, 
And  the  water  broke  o'er  the  saddle-bow." 

These  last  two  lines  have  the  very  movement  and  note, 
the  deep  heavy  plunge,  the  still  swirl  of  the  water.  Well 
I  know  the  lochs  whence  Aill  comes  red  in  flood ;  many 
a  trout  have  I  taken  in  Aill,  long  ago.  This,  of  course, 
causes  a  favourable  prejudice,  a  personal  bias  towards 
admiration.  But  I  think  the  poetry  itself  is  good,  and 
stirs  the  spirit,  even  of  those  who  know  not  Ailmoor,  the 
mother  of  Aill,  that  lies  dark  among  the  melancholy  hills. 

The  spirit  is  stirred  throughout  by  the  chivalry  and  the 

courage  of  Scott's  men  and  of  his  women.     Thus  the  Lady 

of  Branksome  addresses  the  English   invaders  who  have 

taken  her  boy  prisoner  : — 

**  For  the  young  heir  of  Branksome's  line, 
God  be  his  aid,  and  God  be  mine  ; 
Through  me  no  friend  shall  meet  his  doom  j 
Here,  while  I  live,  no  foe  finds  room. 
Then  if  thy  Lords  their  purpose  urge, 
Take  our  defiance  loud  and  high  ; 
Our  slogan  is  their  lyke-wake  dirge. 
Our  moat,  the  grave  where  they  shall  He." 

Ay,  and  though  the  minstrel  says  he  is  no  love  poet,  and 

though,  indeed,  he  shines  more  in  war  than  in  lady's  bower, 

is  not   this  a  noble  stanza  on  true    love,  and   worthy  of 

what  old  Malory  writes  in  his  "  Mort  d'Arthur"?     Because 

here  Scott  speaks   for   himself,  and   of  his  own  unhappy 

and  immortal  afifection  : — 

"  True  love's  the  gift  which  God  has  given 
To  man  alone  beneath  the  Heaven. 
It  Is  not  Fantasy's  hot  fire, 
Whose  wishes,  soon  as  granted,  fly  ) 


176  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

It  Hreth  not  in  fierce  desire. 

With  dead  desire  it  doth  not  die  t 

It  is  the  secret  sympathy, 

The  silver  link,  the  silken  tie, 

Which  heart  to  heart  and  mind  to  mind, 

In  body  and  in  soul  can  bind." 

Truth  and  faith,  courage  and  chivahy,  a  free  life  in  the 

hills  and  by  the  streams,  a  shrewd  brain,  an  open  heart, 

a  kind  word  for  friend  or  foeman,  these  are  what  you  learn 

from  the  "  Lay,"  if  you  want  to  learn  lessons  from  poetry. 

It  is  a  rude  legend,  perhaps,  as  the  critics  said  at  once, 

when   critics  were  disdainful  of  wizard  priests  and  ladies 

magical.     But  it  is  a  deathless  legend,  I  hope ;  it  appeals 

to   every   young  heart   that   is   not   early   spoiled  by  low 

cunning,  and  cynicism,  and  love  of  gain.     The  minstrel's 

own  prophecy  is  true,  and  still,  and  always, 

"  Yarrow,  as  he  rolls  along, 

Bears  burden  to  the  minstrel's  song." 

After  the  "  Lay  "  came  "  Marmion,  a  Tale  of  Flodden 

Field."     It  is  far  more  ambitious  and  complicated   than 

the  "Lay,"  and  is  not  much  worse  written.     Sir   Walter 

was  ever  a  rapid  and  careless  poet,  and  as  he  took  more 

pains   with   his   plot,  he   took  less   with   his   verse.     His 

friends  reproved  him,  but  he  answered  to  one  of  them — 

"  Since  oft  thy  judgment  could  refine 
My  flattened  thought  and  cumbrous  line, 
Still  kind,  as  is  thy  wont,  attend, 
And  in  the  minstrel  spare  the  friend : 
Though  wild  as  cloud,  as  stream,  as  gale, 
I^low  forth,  fiow  unrestrained,  my  tale  P* 

Any  one  who  knows  Scott's  country  knows  how  cloud  and 
stream  and  gale  all  sweep  at  once  down  the  valley  of  Ettrick 
or  of  Tweed.     West  wind,  wild  cloud,  red  river,  they  pour 


THE  POEMS  OF  SIR   WALTER  SCOTT.       177 

forth  as  by  one  impulse — forth  from  the  far-off  hills.     He 

let  his  verse  sweep  out  in  the  same  stormy  sort,  and  many 

a  "  cumbrous  line,"  many  a  "  flattened  thought,"  you  may 

note,  if  you  will,  in  "  Marmion."     For  example — 

"And  think  what  he  must  next  have  felt. 
At  buckling  of  the  falchion  belt." 

The  "  Lay  "  is  a  tale  that  only  verse  could  tell ;  much  of 
"  Marmion  "  might  have  been  told  in  prose,  and  most  of 
"  Rokeby."  But  prose  could  never  give  the  picture  of 
Edinburgh,  nor  tell  the  tale  of  Flodden  Fight  in  "  Marmion," 
which  I  verily  believe  is  the  best  battle-piece  in  all  the 
poetry  of  all  time,  better  even  than  the  stand  of  Aias 
by  the  ships  in  the  Iliad,  better  than  the  slaying  of  the 
Wooers  in  the  Odyssey.  Nor  could  prose  give  us  the 
hunting  of  the  deer  and  the  long  gallop  over  hillside  and 
down  valley,  with  which  the  "  Lady  of  the  Lake "  begins, 
opening  thereby  the  enchanted  gates  of  the  Highlands  to 
the  world.  "The  Lady  of  the  Lake,"  except  in  the  battle- 
piece,  is  told  in  a  less  rapid  metre  than  that  of  the  "  Lay," 
less  varied  than  that  of  "  Marmion."  "  Rokeby  "  lives  only 
by  its  songs ;  the  "  Lord  of  the  Isles  "  by  Bannockburn, 
the  "  Field  of  Waterloo  "  by  the  repulse  of  the  Cuirassiers. 
But  all  the  poems  are  interspersed  with  songs  and  ballads, 
as  the  beautiful  ballad  of  "Alice  Brand  ";  and  Scott's  fame 
rests  on  these  far  more  than  on  his  later  versified  romances. 
Coming  immediately  after  the  very  tamest  poets  who  ever 
lived,  like  Hayley,  Scott  wrote  songs  and  ballads  as  wild 
and  free,  as  melancholy  or  gay,  as  ever  shepherd  sang, 
or  gipsy  (trolled,  or  witch-wife  moaned,  or  old  forgotten 
minstrel  left  to  the  world,  music  with  no  maker's  name. 
For  example,  take  the  Outlaw's  rhyme — 


178  •      ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

"  With  burnished  brand  and  musketoon. 

So  gallantly  you  come, 
I  read  you  for  a  bold  dragoon 

That  lists  the  tuck  of  drum. 
I  list  no  more  the  tuck  of  drum. 

No  more  the  trumpet  hear ; 
But  when  the  beetle  sounds  his  hum, 

My  comrades  take  the  spear. 
And,  oh,  though  Brignal  banks  be  fair. 

And  Greta  woods  be  gay, 
Yet  mickle  must  the  maiden  dare, 

Would  reign  my  Queen  of  May  1  * 

How  musical,  again,  is  this  ! — 

"  This  morn  is  merry  June,  I  trow, 

The  rose  is  budding  fain  ; 
But  she  shall  bloom  in  winter  snow, 

Ere  we  two  meet  again. 
He  turned  his  charger  as  he  spake, 

Upon  the  river  shore. 
He  gave  his  bridle-reins  a  shake, 

Said,  '  Adieu  for  evermore. 

My  love  t 

Adieu  for  evermore  ! '  " 

Turning  from  the  legends  in  verse,  let  it  not  be  forgotten 
that  Scott  was  a  great  lyrical  poet.  Mr.  Palgrave  is  not 
too  lenient  a  judge,  and  his  "Golden  Treasury"  is  a  touch- 
stone, as  well  as  a  treasure,  of  poetic  gold.  In  this  volume 
Wordsworth  contributes  more  lyrics  than  any  other  poet : 
Shelley  and  Shakespeare  come  next ;  then  Sir  Walter.  For 
my  part  I  would  gladly  sacrifice  a  few  of  Wordsworth's 
for  a  few  more  of  Scott's.  But  this  may  be  prejudice.  Mr. 
Palgrave  is  not  prejudiced,  and  we  see  how  high  is  his 
value  for  Sir  Walter. 

There  are  scores  of  songs  in  his  works,  touching  and 
sad,  or  gay  as  a  hunter's  waking,  that  tell  of  lovely  things 


THE  VOEMS  OF  SIR   WALTER  SCOTT.        179 

lost  by  tradition,  and  found  by  him  on  the  moors  :  all  these 
— not  prized  by  Sir  Walter  himself — are  in  his  gift,  and 
in  that  of  no  other  man.  For  example,  his  "  Eve  of  St 
John "  is  simply  a  masterpiece,  a  ballad  among  ballads. 
Nothing  but  an  old  song  moves  us  like — 

"  Are  these  the  links  o'  Forth,  she  said, 
Are  these  the  bends  o'  Dee  ! " 

He  might  have  done  more  of  the  best,  had  he  very  greatly 

cared.      Alone  among  poets,  he  had  neither  vanity   nor 

jealousy;   he  thought  little  of  his  own  verse  and  his  own 

fame :  would  that  he  had  thought  more  !  would  that  he 

had  been  more  careful  of  what  was  so  precious !     But  he 

turned  to  prose ;  bade  poetry  farewell. 

"  Yet,  once  again,  farewell,  thou  Minstrel  Harp, 
Yet,  once  again,  forgive  my  feeble  sway. 
And  little  reck  I  of  the  censure  sharp 
May  idly  cca/il  at  an  idle  lay." 

People  still  cavil  idly,  complaining  that  Scott  did  not 
finish,  or  did  not  polish  his  pieces ;  that  he  was  not  Keats, 
or  was  not  Wordsworth.  He  was  himself;  he  was  the 
Last  Minstrel,  the  latest,  the  greatest,  the  noblest  of  natural 
poets  concerned  with  natural  things.  He  sang  of  free, 
fierce,  and  warlike  life,  of  streams  yet  rich  in  salmon,  and 
moors  no.  y?*  occupied  by  brewers;  of  lonely  places 
haunted  in  the  long  grey  twilights  of  the  North;  of 
crumbling  towers  where  once  dwelt  the  Lady  of  Branksome 
or  the  Flower  of  Yarrow.  Nature  summed  up  in  him 
many  a  past  age,  a  world  of  ancient  faiths;  and  before 
the  great  time  of  Britain  wholly  died,  to  Britain,  as  to 
Greece,  she  gave  her  Homer.  When  he  was  old,  and  tired, 
and  near  his  death — so  worn  with  trouble  and  labour  that 


i8o  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

he  actually  signed  his  own  name  wrong — he  wrote  his  latest 
verse,  for  a  lady.     It  ends — 

"  My  country,  be  thou  glorious  still !  " 

and  so  he  died,  within  the  sound  of  the  whisper  of  Tweed, 
foreseeing  the  years  when  his  country  would  no  more  be 
glorious,  thinking  of  his  country  only,  forgetting  quite  the 
private  sorrow  of  his  own  later  days. 

People  will  tell  you  that  Scott  was  not  a  great  poet; 
that  his  bolt  is  shot,  his  fame  perishing.  Little  he  cared 
for  his  fame !  But  for  my  part  I  think  and  hope  that 
Scott  can  never  die,  till  men  grow  up  into  manhood  without 
ever  having  been  boys — till  they  forget  that 

"  One  glorious  hour  of  crowded  life 
Is  worth  an  age  without  a  name  I " 

Thus,  the  charges  against  Sir  Walter's  poetry  are,  on  the 
whole,  little  more  than  the  old  critical  fallacy  of  blaming  a 
thing  for  not  being  something  else.  "  It  takes  all  sorts  to 
make  a  world,"  in  poetry  as  in  life.  Sir  Walter's  sort  is  a 
very  good  sort,  and  in  Englisih  literature  its  place  was 
empty,  and  waiting  for  him.  Think  of  what  he  did.  English 
poetry  had  long  been  very  tame  and  commonplace,  written 
in  couplets  like  Pope's,  very  artificial  and  smart,  or  sensible 
and  slow.  He  came  with  poems  of  which  the  music  seemed 
to  gallop,  like  thundering  hoofs  and  ringing  bridles  of  a 
rushing  border  troop.  Here  were  goblin,  ghost,  and  fairy, 
fight  and  foray,  fair  ladies  and  true  lovers,  gallant  knights 
and  hard  blows,  blazing  beacons  on  every  hill  crest  and 
on  the  bartisan  of  every  tower.  Here  was  a  world  made 
alive  again  that  had  been  dead  for  three  hundred  years — ^a 
world  of  men  and  women. 


THE  POEMS  OF  SIR   WALTER  SCOTT,        i8l 

They  say  that  the  archseology  is  not  good.  Archaeology 
is  a  science ;  in  its  application  to  poetry,  Scott  was  its 
discoverer.  Others  can  name  the  plates  of  a  coat  of  armour 
more  learnedly  than  he,  but  he  made  men  wear  them. 
They  call  his  Gothic  art  false,  his  armour  pasteboard ;  but 
he  put  living  men  under  his  castled  roofs,  living  men  into  his 
breastplates  and  taslets.  Science  advances,  old  knowledge 
becomes  ignorance  ;  it  is  poetry  that  does  not  die,  and  that 
will  not  die,  while — 

"  The  triple  pride 
Of  Eildon  looks  over  Strathclyde.** 


JOHN    BUNYAN. 

DR.  JOHNSON  once  took  Bishop  Percy's  little  daughter 
on  his  knee,  and  asked  her  what  she  thought  of  the 
"  Pilgrim's  Progress."  The  child  answered  that  she  had 
not  read  it.  "  No  ?  "  replied  the  Doctor ;  *'  then  I  would  not 
give  one  farthing  for  you,"  and  he  set  her  down  and  took 
no  further  notice  of  her. 

This  story,  if  true,  proves  that  the  Doctor  was  rather 
intolerant.  We  must  not  excommunicate  people  because 
they  have  not  our  taste  in  books.  The  majority  of  people 
do  not  care  for  books  at  all. 

There  is  a  descendant  of  John  Bunyan's  alive  now,  or 
there  was  lately,  who  never  read  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress." 
Books  are  not  in  his  line.  Nay,  Bunyan  himself,  who 
wrote  sixty  works,  was  no  great  reader.  An  Oxford  scholar 
who  visited  him  in  his  study  found  no  books  at  all,  except 
some  of  Bunyan's  own  and  Foxe's  "  Book  of  Martyrs." 

Yet,  little  as  the  world  in  general  cares  for  reading,  it 
has  read  Bunyan  more  than  most.  One  hundred  thousand 
copies  of  the  "  Pilgrim  "  are  believed  to  have  been  sold  in 
his  own  day,  and  the  story  has  been  done  into  the  most 
savage  languages,  as  well  as  into  those  of  the  civilised 
world. 


JOHN  BUNYAN.  183 

Dr.  Johnson,  who  did  not  like  Dissenters,  praises  the 
"  invention,  imagination,  and  conduct  of  the  story,"  and 
knew  no  other  book  he  wished  longer  except  "Robinson 
Crusoe  "  and  "  Don  Quixote."  Well,  Dr.  Johnson  would 
not  have  given  a  farthing  for  nu,  as  I  am  quite  contented 
with  the  present  length  of  these  masterpieces.  What  books 
do  you  wish  longer  ?  I  wish  Homer  had  written  a  continua- 
tion of  the  Odyssey,  and  told  us  what  Odysseus  did  among 
the  far-off  men  who  never  tasted  salt  nor  heard  of  the  sea. 
A  land  epic  after  the  sea  epic,  how  good  it  would  have 
been — from  Homer !  But  it  would  have  taxed  the  imagi- 
nation of  Dante  to  continue  the  adventures  of  Christian 
and  his  wife  after  they  had  once  crossed  the  river  and 
reached  the  city. 

John  Bunyan  has  been  more  fortunate  than  most  authors 
in  one  of  his  biographies. 

His  life  has  been  written  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Brown,  who 
is  now  minister  of  his  old  congregation  at  Bedford ; 
and  an  excellent  life  it  is.  Dr.  Brown  is  neither  Round- 
head nor  Cavalier;  for  though  he  is,  of  course,  on  Bunyan's 
side,  he  does  not  throw  stones  at  the  lieautiful  Church  of 
England. 

Probably  most  of  us  are  on  Bunyan's  side  now.  It  might 
be  a  good  thing  that  we  should  all  dwell  together  in  religious 
unity,  but  history  shows  that  people  cannot  be  bribed  into 
brotherhood.  They  tried  to  bully  Bunyan ;  they  arrested 
and  imprisoned  him — unfairly  even  in  law,  according  to 
Dr.  Brown ;  not  unfairly,  Mr.  Froude  thinks — and  he  would 
not  be  bullied. 

What  was  much  more  extraordinary,  he  would  not  be 
embittered.     In  spite  of  all,  he  still  called  Charles  II.  "  a 


1 84  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

gracious  Prince."  When  a  subject  is  in  conscience  at 
variance  with  the  law,  Bunyan  said,  he  has  but  one  course — 
to  accept  peaceably  the  punishment  which  the  law  awards. 
He  was  never  soured,  never  angered  by  twelve  years  of 
durance,  not  exactly  in  a  loathsome  dungeon,  but  in  very 
uncomfortable  quarters.  When  there  came  a  brief  interval 
of  toleration,  he  did  not  occupy  himself  in  brawling,  but  in 
preaching,  and  looking  after  the  manners  and  morals  of 
the  little  "church,"  including  one  woman  who  brought 
disagreeable  charges  against  "  Brother  Honeylove."  The 
church  decided  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  charges,  but 
somehow  the  name  of  Brother  Honeylove  does  not  inspire 
confidence. 

Almost  everybody  knows  the  main  facts  of  Bunyan's 
life.  They  may  not  know  that  he  was  of  Norman  descent 
(as  Dr.  Brown  seems  to  succeed  in  proving),  nor  that 
the  Bunyans  came  over  with  the  Conqueror,  nor  that  he 
was  a  gipsy,  as  others  hold.  On  Dr.  Brown's  showing, 
Bunyan's  ancestors  lost  their  lands  in  process  of  time 
and  change,  and  Bunyan's  father  was  a  tinker.  He 
preferred  to  call  himself  a  brazier — his  was  the  rather 
unexpected  trade  to  which  Mr.  Dick  proposed  apprenticing 
David  Copperfield. 

Bunyan  himself,  "  the  wondrous  babe,"  as  Dr.  Brown 
enthusiastically  styles  him,  was  christened  on  November  30th, 
1628.  He  was  born  in  a  cottage,  long  fallen,  and  hard  by 
was  a  marshy  place,  "a  veritable  slough  of  despond." 
Bunyan  may  have  had  it  in  mind  when  he  wrote  of  the 
slough  where  Christian  had  so  much  trouble.  He  was  not 
a  travelled  man  :  all  his  knowledge  of  people  and  places 
he  found  at  his  doors.    He  had  some  schooling,  *'  according 


JOHN  BUNYAN.  185 

to  the  rate  of  other  poor  men's  children,"  and  assuredly  it 
was  enough. 

The  great  civil  war  broke  out,  and  Bunyan  was  a 
soldier;  he  tells  us  not  on  which  side.  Dr.  Brown  and 
Mr.  Lewis  Morris  think  he  was  on  that  of  the  Parliament, 
but  his  old  father,  the  tinker,  stood  for  the  King.  Mr. 
Froude  is  rather  more  inclined  to  hold  that  he  was  among 
the  "gay  gallants  who  struck  for  the  crown."  He  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  much  under  fire,  but  he  got  that 
knowledge  of  the  appearance  of  war  which  he  used  in  his 
siege  of  the  City  of  Mansoul.  One  can  hardly  think  that 
Bunyan  liked  war — certainly  not  from  cowardice,  but  from 
goodness  of  heart. 

In  1646  the  army  was  disbanded,  and  Bunyan  went  back 
to  Elstow  village  and  his  tinkering,  his  bell-ringing,  his 
dancing  with  the  girls,  his  playing  at  "  cat "  on  a  Sunday 
after  service. 

He  married  very  young  and  poor.  He  married  a  pious 
wife,  and  read  all  her  library — "  The  Plain  Man's  Pathway 
to  Heaven,"  and  "The  Practice  of  Piety."  He  became 
very  devout  in  the  spirit  of  the  Church  of  England,  and 
he  gave  up  his  amusements.  Then  he  fell  into  the  Slough 
of  Despond,  then  he  went  through  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow, 
and  battled  with  ApoUyon. 

People  have  wondered  why  he  fancied  himself  such  a 
sinner  ?  He  confesses  to  having  been  a  liar  and  a  blasphemer. 
If  I  may  guess,  I  fancy  that  this  was  merely  the  literary 
genius  of  Bunyan  seeking  for  expression.  His  lies,  I  would 
go  bail,  were  tremendous  romances,  wild  fictions  told  for 
fun,  never  lies  of  cowardice  or  for  gain.  As  to  his  blas- 
phemies, he  had  an  extraordinary  power  of  language,  and 


1 86  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

that  was  how  he  gave  it  play.  "  Fancy  swearing  "  was  his 
only  literary  safety-valve,  in  those  early  days,  when  he 
played  cat  on  Elstow  Green. 

Then  he  heard  a  voice  dart  from  heaven  into  his 
soul,  which  said,  "Wilt  thou  leave  thy  sins  and  go  to 
heaven,  or  have  thy  sins  and  go  to  hell  ? "  So  he  fell 
on  repentance,  and  passed  those  awful  years  of  mental 
torture,  when  all  nature  seemed  to  tempt  him  to  the 
Unknown  Sin. 

What  did  all  this  mean?  It  meant  that  Bunyan  was 
within  an  ace  of  madness. 

It  happens  to  a  certain  proportion  of  men,  religiously 
brought  up,  to  suffer  like  Bunyan.  They  hear  voices,  they 
are  afraid  of  that  awful  unknown  iniquity,  and  of  eternal 
death,  as  Bunyan  and  Cowper  were  afraid. 

Was  it  not  De  Quincey  who  was  at  school  with  a  bully 
who  believed  he  had  been  guilty  of  the  unpardonable 
offence?  Bullying  is  an  offence  much  less  pardonable 
than  most  men  are  guilty  of.  Their  best  plan  (in  Bunyan's 
misery)  is  to  tell  Apollyon  that  the  Devil  is  an  ass,  to  do 
their  work  and  speak  the  truth. 

Bunyan  got  quit  of  his  terror  at  last,  briefly  by  believing 
in  the  goodness  of  God.  He  did  not  say,  like  Mr.  Carlyle, 
"  Well,  if  all  my  fears  are  true,  what  then  ?  "  His  was  a 
Christian,  not  a  stoical  deliverance. 

The  "church"  in  which  Bunyan  found  shelter  had  for 
minister  a  converted  major  in  a  Royalist  regiment.  It  was 
a  quaint  little  community,  the  members  living  like  the 
early  disciples,  correcting  each  other's  faults,  and  keeping 
a  severe  eye  on  each  other's  lives.  Bunyan  became  a 
minister  in  it ;  but,  Puritan  as  he  was,  he  lets  his  Pilgrims 


JOHN  BUNYAN.  187 

dance  on  joyful  occasions,  and  even  Mr.  Ready-to-Halt 
waltzes  with  a  young  lady  of  the  Pilgrim  company. 

As  a  minister  and  teacher  Bunyan  began  to  write  books 
of  controversy  with  Quakers  and  clergymen.  The  points 
debated  are  no  longer  important  to  us;  the  main  thing 
was  that  he  got  a  pen  into  his  hand,  and  found  a  propei 
outlet  for  his  genius,  a  better  way  than  fancy  swearing. 

If  he  had  not  been  cast  into  Bedford  Jail  for  preaching 
in  a  cottage,  he  might  never  have  dreamed  his  immortal 
dream,  nor  become  all  that  he  was.  The  leisures  of  gaol 
were  long.  In  that  "  den "  the  Muse  came  to  him,  the 
fair  kind  Muse  of  the  Home  Beautiful.  He  saw  all  that 
company  of  his,  so  like  and  so  unlike  Chaucer  s  :  Faithful, 
and  Hopeful,  and  Christian,  the  fellowship  of  fiends,  the 
truculent  Cavaliers  of  Vanity  Fair,  and  Giant  Despair,  with 
his  grievous  crabtree  cudgel ;  and  other  peo£le  he  saw  who 
are  with  us  always, — the  handsome  Madam  Bubble,  and 
the  young  woman  whose  name  was  Dull,  and  Mr.  Worldly 
Wiseman,  and  Mr.  Facing  Bothways,  and  Byends,  all  the 
persons  of  the  comedy  of  human  life. 

He  hears  the  angelic  songs  of  the  City  beyond  the  river ; 
he  hears  them,  but  repeat  them  to  us  he  cannot,  "  for  I'm 
no  poet,"  as  he  says  himself.  He  beheld  the  country  of 
Beulah,  and  the  Delectable  Mountains,  that  earthly  Paradise 
of  nature  where  we  might  be  happy  yet,  and  wander  no 
farther,  if  the  world  would  let  us — fair  mountains  in  whose 
streams  Izaak  Walton  was  then  even  casting  angle. 

It  is  pleasant  to  fancy  how  Walton  and  Bunyan  might 
have  met  and  talked,  under  a  plane  tree  by  the  Ouse,  while 
the  May  showers  were  falling.  Surely  Bunyan  would  not 
have  likened  the  good  old  man  to  Formalist ;  and  certainly 


1 88  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Walton  would  have  enjoyed  travelling  with  Christian,  though 
the  book  was  by  none  of  his  dear  bishops,  but  by  a  Non- 
conformist. They  were  made  to  like  but  not  to  convert 
each  other ;  in  matters  ecclesiastical  they  saw  the  opposite 
sides  of  the  shield.  Each  wrote  a  masterpiece.  It  is  too 
late  to  praise  "The  Complete  Angler"  or  the  "Pilgrim's 
Progress."  You  may  put  ingenuity  on  the  rack,  but  she 
can  say  nothing  new  that  is  true  about  the  best  romance 
that  ever  was  wedded  to  allegory,  nor  about  the  best  idyl 
of  old  English  life. 

The  people  are  living  now — all  the  people  :  the  noisy 
bullying  judges,  as  of  the  French  Revolutionary  Courts, 
or  the  Hanging  Courts  after  Monmouth's  war ;  the  demure, 
grave  Puritan  girls  ;  and  Matthew,  who  had  the  gripes  ;  and 
lazy,  feckless  Ignorance,  who  came  to  so  ill  an  end,  poor 
fellow ;  and  sturdy  Old  Honest,  and  timid  Mr.  Fearing ; 
not  single  persons,  but  dozens,  arise  on  the  memory. 

They  come,  as  fresh,  as  vivid,  as  if  they  were  out  of  Scott 
or  Molibre ;  the  Tinker  is  as  great  a  master  of  character 
and  fiction  as  the  greatest,  almost ;  his  style  is  pure,  and 
plain,  and  sound,  full  of  old  idioms,  and  even  of  something 
like  old  slang.     But  even  his  slang  is  classical. 

Bunyan  is  everybody's  author.  The  very  Catholics  have 
their  own  edition  of  the  Pilgrim  :  they  have  cut  out  Giant 
Pope,  but  have  been  too  good-natured  to  insert  Giant 
Protestant  rn  his  place.  Unheralded,  unannounced,  though 
not  uncriticised  (they  accused  the  Tinker  of  being  a 
plagiarist,  of  course),  Bunyan  outshone  the  Court  w.'ts, 
the  learned,  the  poets  of  the  Restoration,  and  even  the 
great  theologians. 

His  other  books,  except  "  Grace  Abounding "  (an  auto- 


JOHN  BUNYAN.  189 

biography),  "  The  Holy  War,"  and  "  Mr.  Badman,"  are  only 
known  to  students,  nor  much  read  by  them.  The  fashion 
of  his  theology,  as  of  all  theology,  passed  away ;  it  is  bv 
virtue  of  his  imagination,  of  his  romance,  that  he  lives. 

The  allegory,  of  course,  is  full  of  flaws.  It  would  not 
have  been  manly  of  Christian  to  run  off  and  save  his  own 
soul,  leaving  his  wife  and  family.  But  Bunyan  shrank  from 
showing  us  how  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  it  is  for  a 
married  man  to  be  a  saint.  Christiana  was  really  with  him 
all  through  that  pilgrimage ;' and  how  he  must  have  been 
hampered  by  that  woman  of  the  world  !  But  had  the 
allegory  clung  more  closely  to  the  skirts  of  truth,  it  would 
have  changed  from  a  romance  to  a  satire,  from  "The 
Pilgrim's  Progress"  to  "Vanity  Fair."  There  was  too 
much  love  in  Bunyan  for  a  satirist  of  that  kind ;  he  had 
just  enough  for  a  humourist. 

Born  in  another  class,  he  might  have  been,  he  would 
have  been,  a  writer  more  refined  in  his  strength,  more 
uniformly  excellent,  but  never  so  universal  nor  so  popular 
in  the  best  sense  of  the  term. 

In  the  change  of  times  and  belief  it  is  not  impossible 
that  Bunyan  will  live  among  the  class  whom  he  least 
thought  of  addressing — scholars,  lovers  of  worldly  literature 
— for  devotion  and  poverty  are  parting  company,  while  art 
endures  till  civilisation  perishes. 

Are  we  better  or  worse  for  no  longer  believing  as  Bunyan 
believed,  no  longer  seeing  that  Abyss  of  Pascal's  open 
beside  our  arm-chairs  ?  The  question  is  only  a  form  of  that 
wide  riddle,  Does  any  theological  or  philosophical  opinion 
make  us  better  or  worse  ?  The  vast  majority  of  men  and 
women  are  little  affected  by  schemes  and  theories  of  this 


190  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

life  and  the  next.  They  who  even  ask  for  a  reply  to  the 
riddle  are  the  few :  most  of  us  take  the  easy-going  morality 
of  our  world  for  a  guide,  as  we  take  Bradshaw  for  a  railway 
journey.  It  is  the  few  who  must  find  out  an  answer :  on 
that  answer  their  lives  depend,  and  the  lives  of  others  are 
insensibly  raised  towards  their  level.  Bunyan  would  not 
have  been  a  worse  man  if  he  had  shared  the  faith  of  Izaak 
Walton.  Izaak  had  his  reply  to  all  questions  in  the  Church 
Catechism  and  the  Articles.  Bunyan  found  his  in  the 
theology  of  his  sect,  appealing'more  strongly  than  orthodoxy 
to  a  nature  more  bellicose  than  Izaak's.  Men  like  him,  with 
his  indomitable  courage,  will  never  lack  a  solution  of  the 
puzzle  of  the  earth.  At  worst  they  will  live  by  law,  whether 
they  dare  to  speak  of  it  as  God's  law,  or  dare  not  They 
will  always  be  our  leaders,  our  Captain  Greathearls,  in  the 
pilgrimage  to  the  city  where,  led  or  unled,  we  must  all  at 
last  arrive.  They  will  not  fail  us,  while  loyalty  and  valour 
are  human  qualities.  The  day  may  conceivably  come  when 
we  have  no  Christian  to  march  before  us,  but  we  shall 
never  lack  the  company  of  Greatheart. 


TO    A   YOUNG   JOURNALIST. 

DEAR  SMITH,— 
You  inform  me  that  you  desire  to  be  a  journalist, 
and  you  are  kind  enough  to  ask  my  advice.  Well,  be  a 
journalist,  by  all  means,  in  any  honest  and  honourable 
branch  of  the  profession.  But  do  not  be  an  eavesdropper 
and  a  spy.  You  may  fly  into  a  passion  when  you  receive 
this  very  plainly  worded  advice.  I  hope  you  will ;  but,  for 
several  reasons,  which  I  now  go  on  to  state,  I  fear  that  you 
won't.  I  fear  that,  either  by  natural  gift  or  by  acquired 
habit,  you  already  possess  the  imperturbable  temper  which 
will  be  so  useful  to  you  if  you  do  join  the  army  of  spies  and 
eavesdroppers.  If  I  am  right,  you  have  made  up  your  mind 
to  refuse  to  take  offence,  as  long  as  by  not  taking  offence 
you  can  wriggle  yourself  forward  in  the  band  of  journalistic 
reptiles.  You  will  be  revenged  on  me,  in  that  case,  some 
day ;  you  will  lie  in  wait  for  me  with  a  dirty  bludgeon,  and 
steal  on  me  out  of  a  sewer.  If  you  do,  permit  me  to  assure 
you  that  I  don't  care.  But  if  you  are  already  in  a  rage, 
if  you  are  about  tearing  up  this  epistle,  and  are  starting  to 
assault  me  personally,  or  at  least  to  answer  me  furiously, 
then  there  is  every  hope  for  you  and  for  your  future.  I 
therefore  venture  to  state  my  reasons  for  supposing  that  you 


192  ESSAYS  in' LITTLE. 

are  inclined  to  begin  a  course  which  your  father,  if  he  were 
alive,  would  deplore,  as  all  honourable  men  in  their  hearts 
must  deplore  it.  When  you  were  at  the  University  (let  me 
congratulate  you  on  your  degree)  you  edited,  or  helped  to 
edit.  The  Bull-dog.  It  was  not  a  very  brilliant  nor  a  very 
witty,  but  it  was  an  extremely  "  racy  "  periodical.  It  spoke 
of  all  men  and  dons  by  their  nicknames.  It  was  full  of 
second-hand  slang.  It  contained  many  personal  anecdotes, 
to  the  detriment  of  many  people.  It  printed  garbled  and 
spiteful  versions  of  private  conversations  on  private  affairs. 
It  did  not  even  spare  to  make  comments  on  ladies,  and  on 
the  details  of  domestic  life  in  the  town  and  in  the  University. 
The  copies  which  you  sent  me  I  glanced  at  with  extreme 
disgust 

In  my  time,  more  than  a  score  of  years  ago,  a  similar 
periodical,  but  a  much  more  clever  periodical,  was 
put  forth  by  members  of  the  University.  It  contained  a 
novel  which,  even  now,  would  be  worth  several  ill-gotten 
guineas  to  the  makers  of  the  chronique  scandaleuse.  But 
nobody  bought  it,  and  it  died  an  early  death.  Times  have 
altered,  I  am  a  fogey ;  but  the  ideas  of  honour  and  decency 
which  fogies  hold  now  were  held  by  young  men  in  the 
sixties  of  our  century.  I  know  very  well  that  these  ideas 
are  obsolete.  I  am  not  preaching  to  the  world,  nor  hoping 
to  convert  society,  but  to  you,  and  purely  in  your  own 
private,  spiritual  interest.  If  you  enter  on  this  path  of 
tattle,  mendacity,  and  malice,  and  if,  with  your  cleverness 
and  light  hand,  you  are  successful,  society  will  not  turn  its 
back  on  you.  You  will  be  feared  in  many  quarters,  and 
welcomed  in  others.  Of  your  paragraphs  people  will  say 
that  "it  is  a  shame,  of  course,  but  it  is  very  amusing." 


TO  A    YOUNG  JOURNALIST.  193 

There  are  so  many  shames  in  the  world,  shames  not  at  all 
amusing,  that  you  may  see  no  harm  in  adding  to  the  number. 
"  If  I  don't  do  it,"  you  may  argue,  "  some  one  else  will," 
Undoubtedly ;  but  why  should  you  do  it  ? 

You  are  not  a  starving  scribbler;  if  you  determine  to 
write,  you  can  write  well,  though  not  so  easily,  on  many 
topics.  You  have  not  that  last  sad  excuse  of  hunger,  which 
drives  poor  women  to  the  streets,  and  makes  unhappy 
men  act  as  public  blabs  and  spies.  If  you  take  to  this 
metier,  it  must  be  because  you  like  it,  which  means  that 
you  enjoy  bemg  a  listener  to  and  reporter  of  talk  that  was 
never  meant  for  any  ears  except  those  in  which  it  was 
uttered.  It  means  that  the  hospitable  board  is  not  sacred 
for  you ;  it  means  that,  with  you,  friendship,  honour,  all 
that  makes  human  life  better  than  a  low  smoking-room,  are 
only  valuable  for  what  their  betrayal  will  bring.  It  means 
that  not  even  the  welfare  of  your  country  will  prevent  you 
from  running  to  the  Press  with  any  secret  which  you  may 
have  been  entrusted  with,  or  which  you  may  have  surprised. 
It  means,  this  peculiar  kind  of  profession,  that  all  things 
open  and  excellent,  and  conspicuous  to  all  men,  are  with 
you  of  no  account.  Art,  literature,  politics,  are  to  cease  to 
interest  you.  You  are  to  scheme  to  surprise  gossip  about 
the  private  lives,  dress,  and  talk  of  artists,  men  of  letters, 
politicians.  Your  professional  work  will  sink  below  the 
level  of  servants'  gossip  in  a  public-house  parlour.  If  you 
happen  to  meet  a  man  of  known  name,  you  will  watch  him, 
will  listen  to  him,  will  try  to  sneak  into  his  confidence,  and 
you  will  blab,  for  money,  about  him,  and  your  blab  will 
inevitably  be  mendacious.  In  short,  like  the  most  pitiable 
outcasts  of  womankind,  and,  without  their  excuse,  you  will 


194  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

live  by  selling  your  honour.  You  will  not  suffer  much,  nor 
suffer  long.  Your  conscience  will  very  speedily  be  seared 
with  a  red-hot  iron.  You  will  be  on  the  road  which  leads 
from  mere  dishonour  to  crime  ;  and  you  may  find  yourself 
actually  practising  chantage,  and  extorting  money  as  the 
price  of  your  silence.  This  is  the  lowest  deep  :  the  vast 
majority,  even  of  social  mouchards,  do  not  sink  so  low  as 
this. 

The  profession  of  the  critic,  even  in  honourable  and 
open  criticism,  is  beset  with  dangers.  It  is  often  hard 
to  avoid  saying  an  unkind  thing,  a  cruel  thing,  which  is 
smart,  and  which  may  even  be  deserved.  Who  can  say 
that  he  has  escaped  this  temptation,  and  what  man  of  heart 
can  think  of  his  own  fall  without  a  sense  of  shame  ?  There 
are,  I  admit,  authors  so  antipathetic  to  me,  that  I  cannot 
trust  myself  to  review  them.  Would  that  I  had  never 
reviewed  them  !  They  cannot  be  so  bad  as  they  seem  to 
me :  they  must  have  qualities  which  escape  my  observation. 
Then  there  is  the  temptation  to  hit  back.  Some  one  writes, 
unjustly  or  unkindly  as  you  think,  of  you  or  of  your  friends. 
You  wait  till  your  enemy  has  written  a  book,  and  then  you 
have  your  innings.  It  is  not  in  nature  that  your  review 
should  be  fair :  you  must  inevitably  be  more  on  the  look- 
out for  faults  than  merits.  The  ereintage,  the  "  smashing  " 
of  a  literary  foe  is  very  delightful  at  the  moment,  but  it 
does  not  look  well  in  the  light  of  reflection.  But  these 
deeds  are  mere  peccadilloes  compared  with  the  confirmed 
habit  of  regarding  all  men  and  women  as  fair  game  for 
personal  tattle  and  the  sating  of  private  spite.  Nobody, 
perhaps,  begins  with  this  intention.  Most  men  and  women 
can  find  ready  sophistries.     If  a  report  about  any  one 


TO  A   YOUNG  JOURNALIST.  195 

reaches  their  ears,  they  say  that  they  are  doing  him  a 
service  by  pubh"shing  it  and  enabling  him  to  contradict  it. 
As  if  any  mortal  ever  listened  to  a  contradiction !  And 
there  are  charges — that  of  plagiarism,  for  example — which 
can  never  be  disproved,  even  if  contradictions  were  listened 
to  by  the  public.  The  accusation  goes  everywhere,  is  copied 
into  every  printed  rag ;  the  contradiction  dies  with  the  daily 
death  of  a  single  newspaper.  You  may  reply  that  a  man  of 
sense  will  be  indifferent  to  false  accusations.  He  may,  or 
may  not  be, — that  is  not  the  question  for  you ;  the  question 
for  you  is  whether  you  will  circulate  news  that  is  false, 
probably,  and  spiteful,  certainly. 

In  short,  the  whole  affair  regards  yourself  more  than  it 
regards  the  world.  Plenty  of  poison  is  sold :  is  it  well  for 
you  to  be  one  of  the  merchants  ?  Is  it  the  business  of  an 
educated  gentleman  to  live  by  the  trade  of  an  eavesdropper 
and  a  blab  ?  In  the  Memoirs  of  M.  Blowitz  he  tells  you 
how  he  began  his  illustrious  career  by  procuring  the  pub- 
lication of  remarks  which  M.  Thiers  had  made  to  him. 
He  then  "went  to  see  M.  Thiers,  not  without  some 
apprehension."  Is  that  the  kind  of  emotion  which  you 
wish  to  be  habitual  in  your  experience  ?  Do  you  think  it 
agreeable  to  become  shame-faced  when  you  meet  people 
who  have  conversed  with  you  frankly?  Do  you  enjoy  being 
a  sneak,  and  feeling  like  a  sneak  ?  Do  you  find  blushing 
pleasant?  Of  course  you  will  soon  lose  the  power  of 
blushing ;  but  is  that  an  agreeable  prospect  ?  Depend  on  it, 
there  are  discomforts  in  the  progress  to  the  brazen,  in  the 
journey  to  the  shameless.  You  may,  if  your  tattle  is 
political,  become  serviceable  to  men  engaged  in  great  affairs. 
They  may  even  ask  you  to  their  houses,  if  that  is  your 


196  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

ambition.  You  may  urge  that  they  condone  your  deed^, 
and  are  even  art  and  part  in  them.  But  you  must  also  be 
aware  that  they  call  you,  and  think  you,  a  reptile.  You  are 
not  one  of  those  who  will  do  the  devil's  work  without  the 
devil's  wages ;  but  do  you  seriously  think  that  the  wages  are 
worth  the  degradation  ? 

Many  men  think  so,  and  are  not  in  other  respects  bad 
men.  They  may  even  be  kindly  and  genial.  Gentlemen 
they  cannot  be,  nor  men  of  delicacy,  nor  men  of  honour. 
They  have  sold  themselves  and  their  self-respect,  some  with 
ease  (they  are  the  Iea.st  blamable),  some  with  a  struggle. 
They  have  seen  better  things,  and  perhaps  vainly  long  to 
return  to  them.  These  are  "  St.  Satan's  Penitents,"  and  their 
remorse  is  vain : 

Virtutem  videant,  intabescantque  relida. 

If  you  don't  wish  to  be  of  this  dismal  company,  there  is  only 
one  course  open  to  you.  Never  write  for  publication  one 
line  of  personal  tattle.  Let  all  men's  persons  and  private 
lives  be  as  sacred  to  you  as  your  father's, — though  there  are 
tattlers  who  would  sell  paragraphs  about  their  own  mothers 
if  there  were  a  market  for  the  ware.  There  is  no  half-way 
house  on  this  road.  Once  begin  to  print  private  conversa- 
tion, and  you  are  lost — lost,  that  is,  to  delicacy,  and 
gradually,  to  many  other  things  excellent  and  of  good 
report.  The  whole  question  for  you  is.  Do  you  mind 
incurring  this  damnation  ?  If  there  is  nothing  in  it  which 
appals  and  revolts  you,  if  your  conscience  is  satisfied  with 
a  few  ready  sophisms,  or  if  you  don't  care  a  pin  for  your 
conscience,  fall  to ! 

Vous  irez  loin  I    You  will  prattle  in  print  about  men's 


TO  A    YOUNG  JOURNALIST.  197 

private  lives,  their  hidden  motives,  their  waistcoats,  their 
wives,  their  boots,  their  businesses,  their  incomes.  Most  of 
your  prattle  will  inevitably  be  lies.  But  go  on  !  nobody  will 
kick  you,  I  deeply  regret  to  say.  You  will  earn  money. 
You  will  be  welcomed  in  society.  You  will  live  and  die 
content,  and  without  remorse.  I  do  not  suppose  that 
any  particular  inferno  will  await  you  in  the  future  life. 
Whoever  watches  this  world  "  with  larger  other  eyes  than 
ours  "  will  doubtless  make  allowance  for  you,  as  for  us  all.  I 
am  not  pretending  to  be  a  whit  better  than  you  ;  probably  I 
am  worse  in  many  ways,  but  not  in  your  way.  Putting  it 
merely  as  a  matter  of  taste,  I  don't  like  the  way.  It  makes 
me  sick — that  is  all.  It  is  a  sin  which  I.  can  comfortably 
damn,  as  I  am  not  inclined  to  it.  You  may  put  it  in  that 
light ;  and  I  have  no  way  of  converting  you,  nor,  if  I  have 
not  dissuaded  you,  of  dissuading  you,  from  continuing,  on  a 
larger  scale,  your  practices  in  The  Bull-dog. 


MR.    KIPLING'S    STORIES. 

THE  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth.  But  the  wind  of 
literary  inspiration  has  rarely  shaken  the  bungalows 
of  India,  as,  in  the  tales  of  the  old  Jesuit  missionaries,  the 
magical  air  shook  the  frail  "medicine  tents,"  where  Huron 
conjurors  practised  their  mysteries.  With  a  world  of 
romance  and  of  character  at  their  doors,  Englishmen  in 
India  have  seen  as  if  they  saw  it  not.  They  have  been 
busy  in  governing,  in  making  war,  making  peace,  building 
bridges,  laying  down  roads,  and  writing  official  reports. 
Our  literature  from  that  continent  of  our  conquest  has  been 
sparse  indeed,  except  in  the  way  of  biographies,  of  histories, 
and  of  rather  local  and  unintelligible  faceiice.  Except  the 
novels  by  the  author  of  "  Tara,"  and  Sir  Henry  Cunning- 
ham's brilliant  sketches,  such  as  "  Dustypore,"  and  Sir 
Alfred  Lyall's  poems,  we  might  almost  say  that  India  has 
contributed  nothing  to  our  finer  literature.  That  old 
haunt  of  history,  the  wealth  of  character  brought  out 
in  that  confusion  of  races,  of  religions,  and  the  old 
and  new,  has  been  wealth  untouched,  a  treasure-house 
sealed:  those  pagoda  trees  have  never  been  shaken.  At 
last  there  conies  an  Englishman  with  eyes,  with  a  pen 
extraordinarily  deft,  an  observation  marvellously  rapid  and 


MR.  KIPLINGS  STORIES.  199 

keen;  and,  by  good  luck,  this  Englishman  has  no  official 
duties :  he  is  neither  a  soldier,  nor  a  judge ;  he  is  merely 
a  man  of  letters.  He  has  leisure  to  look  around  him,  he 
has  the  power  of  making  us  see  what  he  •  sees  ;  and,  when 
we  have  lost  India,  when  some  new  power  is  ruling  where 
wc  ruled,  when  our  empire  has  followed  that  of  the  Moguls, 
future  generations  will  learn  from  Mr.  Kipling's  works  what 
India  was  under  English  sway. 

It  is  one  of  the  surprises  of  literature  that  these  tiny 
masterpieces  in  prose  and  verse  were  poured,  "  as  rich  men 
give  that  care  not  for  their  gifts,"  into  the  columns  of 
Anglo-Indian  journals.  There  they  were  thought  clever 
and  ephemeral — part  of  the  chatter  of  the  week.  The 
subjects,  no  doubt,  seemed  so  familiar,  that  the  strength 
of  the  handling,  the  brilliance  of  the  colour,  were  scarcely 
recognised.  But  Mr.  Kipling's  volumes  no  sooner  reached 
England  than  the  people  into  whose  hands  they  fell  were 
certain  that  here  were  the  beginnings  of  a  new  literary 
force.  The  books  had  the  strangeness,  the  colour,  the 
variety,  the  perfume  of  the  East.  Thus  it  is  no  wonder 
that  Mr.  Kipling's  repute  grew  up  as  rapidly  as  the  mys- 
terious mango  tree  of  the  conjurors.  There  were  critics, 
of  course,  ready  to  say  that  the  thing  was  merely  a  trick, 
and  had  nothing  of  the  supernatural.  That  opinion  is 
not  likely  to  hold  its  ground.  Perhaps  the  most  severe 
of  the  critics  has  been  a  young  Scotch  gentleman,  writing 
French,  and  writing  it  wonderfully  well,  in  a  Parisian  review. 
He  chose  to  regard  Mr.  Kipling  as  little  but  an  imitator 
of  Bret  Harte,  deriving  his  popularity  mainly  from  the 
novel  and  exotic  character  of  his  subjects.  No  doubt,  if 
Mr.  Kipling  has  a  literary  progenitor,  it  is  Mr.  Bret  Harte. 


200  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

Among  his  earlier  verses  a  few  are  what  an  imitator  of  the 
American  might  have  written  in  India.  But  it  is  a  wild 
judgment  which  traces  Mr.  Kipling's  success  to  his  use, 
for  example,  of  Anglo-Indian  phrases  and  scraps  of  native 
dialects.  The  presence  of  these  elements  is  among  the 
causes  which  have  made  Englishmen  think  Anglo-Indian 
literature  tediously  provincial,  and  India  a  bore.  *  Mr. 
Kipling,  on  the  other  hand,  makes  us  regard  the  con- 
tinent which  was  a  bore  an  enchanted  land,  full  of  marvels 
and  magic  which  are  real.  There  has,  indeed,  arisen  a 
taste  for  exotic  literature :  people  have  become  alive  to 
the  strangeness  and  fascination  of  the  world  beyond  the 
bounds  of  Europe  and  the  United  States.  But  that  is 
only  because  men  of  imagination  and  literary  skill  have 
been  the  new  conquerors — the  Corteses  and  Balboas  of 
India,  Africa,  Australia,  Japan,  and. the  isles  of  the  southern 
seas.  All  such  conquerors,  whether  they  write  with  the 
polish  of  M.  Pierre  Loti,  or  with  the  carelessness  of  Mr. 
Boldrewood,  have,  at  least,  seen  new  worlds  for  them- 
selves ;  have  gone  out  of  the  streets  of  the  over-populated 
lands  into  the  open  air;  have  sailed  and  ridden,  walked 
and  hunted;  have  escaped  from  the  fog  and  smoke  of 
towns.  New  strength  has  come  from  fresher  air  into 
their  brains  and  blood;  hence  the  novelty  and  buoyancy 
of  the  stories  which  they  tell.  Hence,  too,  they  are  rather 
to  be  counted  among  romanticists  than  realists,  however 
real  is  the  essential  truth  of  their  books.  They  have  found 
so  much  to  see  and  to  record,  that  they  are  not  tempted 
to  use  the  microscope,  and  pore  for  ever  on  the  minute 
in  character.  A  great  deal  of  realism,  especially  in  France, 
attracts  because  it  is  novel,  because  M.  Zola  and  others 


MR.  KIPLINGS  STORIES.  201 

have  also  found  new  worlds  to  conquer.  But  certain 
provinces  in  those  worlds  were  not  unknown  to,  but  were 
voluntarily  neglected  by,  earlier  explorers.  They  were 
the  "Bad  Lands"  of  hfe  and  character:  surely  it  is 
wiser  to  seek  quite  new  realms  than  to  build  mud  huts 
and  dunghills  on  the  "  Bad  Lands." 

Mr.  Kipling's  work,  like  all  good  work,  is  both  real 
and  romantic.  It  is  real  because  he  sees  and  feels  very 
swiftly  and  keenly ;  it  is  romantic,  again,  because  he  has 
a  sharp  eye  for  the  reality  of  romance,  for  the  attraction 
and  possibility  of  adventure,  and  because  he  is  young. 
If  a  reader  wants  to  see  petty  characters  displayed  in 
all  their  meannesses,  if  this  be  realism,  surely  certain 
of  Mr.  Kipling's  painted  and  frisky  matrons  are  realistic 
enough.  The  seamy  side  of  Anglo-Indian  life  :  the  in- 
trigues, amorous  or  semi-political — the  slang  of  people 
who  describe  dining  as  "  mangling  garbage  " — the  "  games 
of  tennis  with  the  seventh  commandment" — he  has  not 
neglected  any  of  these.  Probably  the  sketches  are  true 
enough,  and  pity  'tis  'tis  true :  for  example,  the  sketches 
in  "Under  the  Deodars"  and  in  "The  Gadsbys."  That 
worthy  pair,  with  their  friends,  are  to  myself  as  unsym- 
pathetic, almost,  as  the  characters  in  "  La  Conquete  de 
Plassans."  But  Mr.  Kipling  is  too  much  a  true  realist 
to  make  their  selfishness  and  pettiness  unbroken,  un- 
ceasing. We  know  that  "Gaddy"  is  a  brave,  modest, 
and  hard-working  soldier ;  and,  when  his  little  silly  bride 
(who  prefers  being  kissed  by  a  man  with  waxed  mous- 
taches) lies  near  to  death,  certainly  I  am  nearer  to 
tears  than  when  I  am  obliged  to  attend  the  bed  of 
Little   Dombey  or  of  Little  Nell.     Probably   there   is  a 


202  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

great  deal  of  slangy  and  unrefined  Anglo-Indian  society; 
and,  no  doubt,  to  sketch  it  in  its  true  colours  is  not 
beyond  the  province  of  art.  At  worst  it  is  redeemed,  in 
part,  by  its  constancy  in  the  presence  of  various  perils — 
from  disease,  and  from  "  the  bullet  flying  down  the  pass." 
Mr.  Kipling  may  not  be,  and  very  probably  is  not,  a 
reader  of  "  Gyp";  but  "The  Gadsbys,"  especially,  reads  like 
the  work  of  an  Anglo-Indian  disciple,  trammelled  by  certain 
English  conventions.  The  more  Pharisaic  realists — those 
of  the  strictest  sect — would  probably  welcome  Mr.  Kipling 
as  a  younger  brother,  so  far  as  "  Under  the  Deodars  "  and 
"  The  Gadsbys  "  are  concerned,  if  he  were  not  occasionally 
witty  and  even  flippant,  as  well  as  realistic.  But,  very 
fortunately,  he  has  not  confined  his  observation  to  the 
leisures  and  pleasures  of  Simla;  he  has  looked  out  also 
on  war  and  on  sport,  on  the  life  of  all  native  tribes  and 
castes ;  and  has  even  glanced  across  the  borders  of  "  The 
Undiscovered  Country." 

Among  Mr.  Kipling's  discoveries  of  new  kinds  of  char- 
acters, probably  the  most  popular  is  his  invention  of  the 
British  soldier  in  India.  He  avers  that  he  "loves  that 
very  strong  man,  Thomas  Atkins";  but  his  affection  has 
not  blinded  him  to  the  faults  of  the  beloved.  Mr.  Atkins 
drinks  too  much,  is  too  careless  a  gallant  in  love,  has 
been  educated  either  too  much  or  too  little,  and  has  other 
faults,  partly  due,  apparently,  to  recent  military  organisa- 
tion, partly  to  the  feverish  and  unsettled  state  of  the 
civilised  world.  But  he  is  still  brave,  when  he  is  well  led ; 
still  loyal,  above  all,  to  his  "  trusty  chum."  Every  English- 
man must  hope  that,  if  Terence  Mulvaney  did  not  take 
the  city  of  Lungtung  Pen  as  described,  yet  he  is  ready  and 


MR.  KIPLINGS  STORIES.  203 

willing  so  to  take  it.  Mr.  Mulvaney  is  as  humorous  as 
Micky  Free,  but  more  melancholy  and  more  truculent.  He 
has,  perhaps,  "  won  his  Vvay  to  the  mythical "  already,  and 
is  not  so  much  a  soldier,  as  an  incarnation,  not  of  Krishna; 
but  of  many  soldierly  qualities.  On  the  other  hand, 
Private  Ortheris,  especially  in  his  frenzy,  seems  to  shew 
all  the  truth,  and  much  more  than  the  life  of,  a  photograph. 
Such,  we  presume,  is  the  soldier,  and  such  are  his  experi- 
ences and  temptations  and  repentance.  But  nobody  ever 
dreamed  of  telling  us  all  this,  till  Mr.  Kipling  came.  As 
for  the  soldier  in  action,  the  "  Taking  of  Lungtung  Pen," 
and  the  "  Drums  of  the  Fore  and  Aft,"  and  that  other  tale 
of  the  battle  with  the  Pathans  in  the  gorge,  are  among  the 
good  fights  of  fiction.  They  stir  the  spirit,  and  they  should 
be  distributed  (in  addition,  of  course,  to  the  "  Soldier's 
Pocket  Book")  in  the  ranks  of  the  British  army.  Mr. 
Kipling  is  as  well  informed  about  the  soldier's  women-kind 
as  about  the  soldier  :  about  Dinah  Shadd  as  about  Terence 
Mulvaney.  Lever  never  instructed  us  on  these  matters : 
Micky  Free,  if  he  loves,  rides  away;  but  Terence  Mulvaney 
is  true  to  his  old  woman.  Gallant,  loyal,  reckless,  vain, 
swaggering,  and  tender-hearted,  Terence  Mulvaney,  if  there 
were  enough  of  him,  "would  take  St.  Petersburg  in  his 
drawers."  Can  we  be  too  grateful  to  an  author  who  has 
extended,  as  Mr.  Kipling  in  his  military  sketches  has 
extended,  the  frontiers  of  our  knowledge  and  sympathy  ? 

It  is  a  mere  question  of  individual  taste ;  but,  for  my 
own  part,  had  I  to  make  a  small  selection  from  Mr. 
Kipling's  tales,  I  would  include  more  of  his  studies  in 
Black  than  in  White,  and  many  of  his  excursions  beyond 
the  probable  and  natural.     It  is  difficult  to  have  one  special 


204  ESSAYS  IN  LITTLE. 

favourite  in  this  kind;  but  perhaps  the  story  of  the  two 
English  adventurers  among  the  freemasons  of  unknown 
Kafiristan  (in  the  "  Phantom  Rickshaw ")  would  take  a 
very  high  place.  The  gas-heated  air  of  the  Indian  news- 
paper office  is  so  real,  and  into  it  comes  a  wanderer  who 
has  seen  new  faces  of  death,  and  who  carries  with  him 
a  head  that  has  worn  a  royal  crown.  The  contrasts  are 
of  brutal  force ;  the  legend  is  among  the  best  of  such 
strange  fancies.  Then  there  is,  in  ihe  same  volume,  "The 
Strange  Ride  of  Morrowbie  Jukes,"  the  most  dreadful 
nightmare  of  the  most  awful  Bunker  in  the  realms  of  fancy. 
This  is  a  very  early  work ;  if  nothing  else  of  Mr.  Kipling's 
existed,  his  memory  might  live  by  it,  as  does  the  memory 
of  the  American  Irishman  by  the  "  Diamond  Lens."  The 
sham  magic  of  "  In  the  House  of  Suddhu  "  is  as  terrible 
as  true  necromancy  could  be,  and  I  have  a./aid/esse  for  the 
"  Bisara  of  Pooree."  "The  Gate  of  the  Hundred  Sorrows" 
is  a  realistic  version  of  "The  English  Opium  Eater,"  and 
more  powerful  by  dint  of  less  rhetoric.  As  for  the  sketches 
of  native  life—  for  example,  "  On  the  City  Wall  " — to 
English  readers  they  are  no  less  than  revelations.  They 
testify,  more  even  than  the  military  stories,  to  the  author's 
swift  and  certain  vision,  his  certainty  in  his  effects.  In 
brief,  Mr.  Kipling  has  conquered  worlds,  of  which,  as  it 
were,  we  knew  not  the  existence. 

His  faults  are  so  conspicuous,  so  much  on  the  surface, 
that  they  hardly  need  to  be  named.  They  are  curiously 
visible  to  some  readers  who  are  blind  to  his  merits.  There 
is  a  false  air  of  hardness  (quite  in  contradiction  to  the 
sentiment  in  his  tales  of  childish  life) ;  there  is  a  knowing 
air ;  there  are  mannerisms,  such  as   "  But  that  is  another 


MR.  KIPUNGS  STORIES.  205 

story";  there  is  a  display  of  slang;  there  is  the  too  obtrusive 
knocking  of  the  nail  on  the  head.  Everybody  can  mark 
these  errors;  a  few  cannot  overcome  their  antipathy,  and 
so  lose  a  great  deal  of  pleasure. 

It  is  impossible  to  guess  how  Mr.  Kipling  will  fare  if 
he  ventures  on  one  of  the  usual  novels,  of  the  orthodox 
length.  Few  men  have  succeeded  both  in  the  conte  and 
the  novel.  Mr.  Bret  Harte  is  limited  to  the  conte ;  M.  Guy 
de  Maupassant  is  probably  at  his  best  in  it.  Scott  wrote 
but  three  or  four  short  tales,  and  only  one  of  these  is  a 
masterpiece,  Poe  never  attempted  a  novel.  Hawthorne 
is  almost  alone  in  his  command  of  both  kinds.  We  can 
live  only  in  the  hope  that  Mr.  Kipling,  so  skilled  in  so 
many  species  of  the  conte^  so  vigorous  in  so  many  kinds 
of  verse,  will  also  be  triumphant  in  the  novel :  though  it 
seems  unlikely  that  its  scene  can  be  in  England,  and 
though  it  is  certain  that  a  writer  who  so  cuts  to  the  quick  will 
not  be  happy  with  the  novel's  almost  inevitable  "padding." 
Mr.  Kipling's  longest  effort,  "  The  Light  which  Failed,"  can, 
perhaps,  hardly  be  considered  a  test  or  touchstone  of  his 
powers  as  a  novelist  The  central  interest  is  not  powerful 
enough ;  the  characters  are  not  so  sympathetic,  as  are 
the  interest  and  the  characters  of  his  short  pieces.  Many 
of  these  persons  we  have  met  so  often  that  they  are  not 
mere  passing  acquaintances,  but  already  find  in  us  the 
loyalty  due  to  old  friends. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


MAY  15  78  14  DAY 

1  6  JU.\  78  RLC  CL 


Book  SIip-35ni-7,'63(D863484)42S0 


UCU-College  Ubrary 

PNSttlJSe  1891a 


College 
Librarv 


PN 
1891a 


A    001  106  103     3 


